Upcoming October Events

Remember when I told you the Davis-Bourne Inn of Independence was keeping a very good, detailed calendar of events for the area? (I'd link to it, but can't find the post.) Well, the inn has since closed (though I've heard someone is going to buy and reopen the inn and it's restaurant).

You could try The Twin County Calendar of Events site. It looks like it's kept up now, though in the recent past I saw it was missing a lot of the festivals, and some of what I've got listed below isn't on there now.

You can also scour local news sites and google key words, but that's a lot of work and probably won't help any non-locals.

Here's some October events. Most of this information is from local news sites (The Gazette or Mount Airy News) or events I knew of:

This Saturday (Oct. 2) is the annual Baywood Fall Festival the Baywood Elementary (Va.). I always loved covering this festival. It's small and personal. It is for the community, after all. There's always a parade and crafts and I hope there will be pumpkin painting for the kids again. It was always fun getting pics of those.

Next weekend is both the Mountain Foliage Festival (Oct. 8-9) in Independence (Va.) and the Whitetop Mountain Sorghum Molasses Festival (Oct. 10) at the Mount Rogers Fire and Rescue Squad (Va.).

At the Mountain Foliage Festival, there are a ton of events Friday night and all day Saturday. You will be exhausted if you try to catch all of it! So plan you visit accordingly. Suggestions: Potty Princess Contest on Friday and the state's only and official Privy Race on Saturday.

Oct. 16 is both the New River Trail Fall Foliage Bike Ride and the Bridle Creek Fall Festival at Bridle Creek Elementary.

On the Mount Airy News site, I found this event and thought it was interesting -- Tastefully Superficial: the Art of Victorian Dressing at the Historic Sharpe House in Statesville, N.C. The event is on Thursdays and Fridays through Oct. 17.

If you hear of anything else, just post in the comments below or send me an email. That way more people can be aware of events!

Ohio River Islands National Wildlife Refuge

On a recent trip to the Wheeling, W.Va., area, we stopped at two locations for the Ohio River Islands National Wildlife Refuge.

Refuge headquarters
On the way up, we stopped in Williamstown, W.Va, home of the refuge's headquarters. There, you can find a visitor center with some exhibits and a few short trails, including a trail that's 0.9 miles (with a 0.5 mile shorter loop).

You can't get across to the islands at this location, but you can hike, hunt and fish. The refuge has 22 islands and three mainland tracts.

We had a nice picnic lunch under a shelter before heading out.

Here's some pics:

This turtle has a pointy snout!

This is a washboard mussel. The visitor center had several examples of the mussels protected along the refuge's riverbank.

A buckeye! People from Ohio are called Buckeyes, but after a nut, not this butterfly.

I'm standing beside the Ohio. One of the trails travels along the riverbank.

Middle Island
On our way back home, we stopped at Middle Island, which is located at St. Marys, W.Va.

This is the only island in the Ohio River Island National Wildlife Refuge you can visit.

We walked a 3.77 mile loop, but never saw a visitor center that I thought would be at the top of the loop.

Here's some pics:

Things to do nearby
While in Williamstown, visit the town's wetlands. It's just up the road from the refuge and is a new, short trail located in the middle of town.

Here's some pics:

Williamstown is also home to the Fenton Glass Factory, which you can tour, and the Henderson Hall Plantation.

Chris enjoyed seeing how the town was built around the railroad. Get out and walk around town to check out the buildings and see how homes and businesses were built near and around the tracks.

While in Willimastown, we saw lots of locally-owned businesses and wilfdlife:

birds: goldfinches, pigeons, ducks, sandpiper-type bird

butterflies: sulphurs, buckeyes, whites, red spotted purples, monarch or viceroy

dragonflies

Some more photos:

A dragonfly at the Ohio River Islands refuge.

There was so much algae, this bird was able to walk on the water at the wetlands. I think this is a type of sandpiper.

A dragonfly at the wetlands.

Ducks at the wetlands.

I think this is a viceroy, but it could be a monarch.

Williamstown is also across the river from Marietta, Ohio. Chris wanted to visit, but we didn't have any time to stop. In and around Marietta, there's a lot of Underground Railroad sites.

You can't see it here, but there's a sign along the bank that says "Marietta."

Blue Ridge Parkway's 75th

I had a migraine most of last weekend so I didn't make it out to the Blue Ridge Parkway's 75th as much as I wanted, but I did make it out to the Blue Ridge Music Center Saturday evening for the big show. I wish we could have gone to Cumberland Knob, but I wasn't up to it.

While Chris walked around getting photos for work, I checked out the booths and listened to some of the old time music.

Members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee demonstration traditional dances and songs (along with a few volunteers from the audience).

On the stage, we heard presentation by local officials, Cherokee dances and songs and more old time music.

The main attraction of the evening of Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys. Stanley is a legend and I was bound and determined to see him perform. So, we did.

Here's Stanley signing autographs way before the concert. That's his grandson, Nathan, on his right. I had no idea Chris took this photo until I just went through them today.

The band opened up with "Man of Constant Sorrow" and ended on "I'll Fly Away" (Allison Krauss and Gillian Welch version). They entertained us for over an hour with some familiar tunes and other stuff I didn't recognize.

At one point, there were three Stanley generations on the stage — Ralph, son Ralph II and grandson Nathan.

Ralph Stanley mostly sang during the evening but did take up the banjo for one song. That was pretty cool.

Here's some more photos from the event:

The audience got some flat footing lessons, thanks to Phil Jamison, before the main concert began.

The Buck Mountain Band provided the music for the flat footing lessons. My former editor, Amy, is playing the banjo. Hi, Amy!

The Round Peak Boys kicked off the evening concert.

Several classic cars cruised down the Parkway to the music center. The goal was to have 75 cars participate, but I don't know if that many arrived at the center.

Area elementary schools in North Carolina and Virginia created birthday cards for the Parkway. The one in the upper right is my favorite: "I can't believe you were open seventy five (sic) years. If I worked thier (sic) I would be exausted (sic)," written by Loxi, a third grader at a Virginia elementary.

Fort Dobbs, Statesville, N.C.

On a trip to Charlotte, N.C., Chris and I stopped at Fort Dobbs, which is near Statesville.

Fort Dobbs was build during the French and Indian War in the 1700s. It was meant to be a temporary fort, so was not built on a foundation. The building, therefore, deteriorated in a matter of decades.

The museum has constructed some buildings on the site and plans to rebuild the 3-story fort.

Here's the museum

Inside is a lot of information and gifts. There's also a model of the fort that used to sit on the site.

It will be cool to walk around the fort once it's built and see what it looked like. The museum already has the property surveyed and taped, marking the boundaries of the fort.

Staff said a well was inside the building and there was a root cellar under half of the building where provisions were kept. A central chimney served all three floors and each floor cooked it's meal over the fire.

Afterwards we walked on a short nature trail, which was close to 3/4 a mile. There were signs of trail work, so I bet there will be more trails in the future. Here's some picture we saw on the trail:

We're not sure if these markings are original or created for interpretive purposes.

This appears this will be a temporary tent or something to be used for interpretation.

You should definitely stop by the park. Staff has a wealthy of information and it's going to be a really cool site once the fort is built.

There's no cost for this park, but donations would be appreciated, I'm sure. There's a donation jar in the museum.

Here's a map to the park.

Serpent Mounds, Ohio

On the way home from our Cincinnati trip, we stopped at the Serpent Mound in Peebles, Ohio.

This is an old burial ground, built by the Adena people (800 B.C.- A.D. 100).

There are 3 smaller burial mounds, built by people of a different culture and period.

There's a tower you can climb up and look over the whole Serpent Mound, which is shaped like a snake.

The trail around the mound is very short and there's a nature trail that goes down by a creek. We skipped the nature trail because we already had several mosquito bites just from the short walk around the mound.

The small museum must not be missed. I really liked learning about the different types of mounds — when they were constructed, by whom and how. The exhibits were really good and thorough for such a small location.

This would be a quick stop as there isn't that much to do here.

There is a fee to hang out at this site -- here

You can learn more about Serpent Mound here and here.

Here's a map to get you to the park. We traveled from Ohio 32 to Ohio 73.

Deep fried butter?

Seriously? Who would eat that?

(As seen at Hillsville's Labor Day Flea Market and Gun Show. Photo by Christopher Brooke. Do not use without permission.)