See You Next Year, Grafton

We love Grafton, West Virginia.

We hate to leave. The house here doesn't begin to compare to our house in California, but this is one special place. Given the choice, this is where the kids would rather live. I can certainly understand why.

View of our WV house from the driveway. Click photo to view larger.

One Last Trip Up The Creek

We took our "farewell" hike to Flat Rocks today.

It's our last adventure for our trip here in West Virginia. We'll be heading to my Uncle's house in Charleston tomorrow and then on to Nashville, TN for the weekend. It's always a happy/sad day. We know it's our last time to go for a year. The kids don't understand what "last time this year" means, so they view this trip more happily than I do. I do understand time. So I get a little sad.


The boys waded through every pool and had a great time. The two youngest were not always the most eager to wade into the "unknown" depths of these pools, but they eventually got into it. Here are a few more panoramas for your enjoyment. Click on the photos to view larger.
View of Flat Rocks. The big flat rock on the left is "the" flat rocks destination.

More From The Creek

Dad Joins In The Crawdad Fun

Catching Crawdads In The Creek

Our friends, the Jennings, arrived today. They live in Waterloo, Illinois and try to make it here to Grafton for a few days each year when we're here. They have two boys. When they arrive, the energy changes in the house and the activity level of all the boys increases. The boys only see each other once a year, and after just a few minutes, they pick up right where they left off the year before.

Today was no exception. All the boys headed to the creek and after a few minutes, we could hear the sounds of excited kids echoing up through the hollow. They found some crawdads and they needed a container to put them in.

My cousin, Jason, and his family were also here at the time. We laughed at their exaggerated descriptions of how big their crawdads were as they ran up the hill. This scene repeated itself many times. They kept coming until we ran out of containers large enough to hold the crawdads and made them stop. They captured more than 20 crawdads and a tiny salamander.

I can remember, with great joy, doing the exact same things at their age. If you who have never caught crawdads in a creek, you have no idea what you missed. Here's a short video of their catch today.

It's What You Don't See That Made This Special

What you don't see is the fawn that ran across the road. Rocky spotted the deer and stopped the car, then turned off the engine. The doe then came out in the middle of the road and stopped. Seconds later, her baby darted across the street. She stood there until the fawn was out of sight. Then, when she knew it was safe, she darted as well.

This was one of the few nights I did not have a camera that shoots video with me. I only had the iPhone. Don't think I'm not pissed Steve Jobs didn't include a video option.

Turner Road Panorama

Click on photo to view larger.

Turner Road

I'm proud that the road our WV home is on is named after my family. My grandparents were amazing people and they deserve the honor. Here's a quick 2 minute trip down Turner Road to our driveway.

Someone Needs To Check The Temperature In Hell

Yesterday I cut grass for the first time in over 20 years.

For anyone who knows me at all, that would be a big enough news flash. But wait, there's more. Today I used a hammer. And I used it to actually drive nails into wood and began to build a tree fort for the kids. Here is the evidence:

Unfortunately, we ran out of wood or this thing would be done today. :)

I Love This View

From the front window of our house, I look down on the home where my Mammaw and Pappaw lived. The house where my Father was raised. The house where I played as a child. The house that holds most of my Summer memories.