In Which A Murder Is Solved (But Not By Me)

(Sorry for the delay! Here is my family's visit, continued:)

On Friday night, we had tickets to go on a murder mystery train ride up at Cass.  That may sound hokey to you, but my mother and my main bonding activity involves solving murders committed in small British towns vicariously through the BBC, so the words "murder mystery" pretty much committed us to this activity.  As the ride involves dinner and a show, the tickets were a bit more expensive than other Cass rides.  We coughed it up, and my mother declared it my big birthday present.  In retrospect, I might have insisted on that new pair of TOMs, instead, but it was a pretty good time, regardless.

I am shamed to say that the hours we've spent watching murders being solved by other people (to say nothing of my status as undisputed Clue champion of the family) did not seem to provide Mom and me with quite enough skill to solve this particular murder.  We spread out our guesses instead, and, lo and behold, my father was the only one who fingered the killer.  Something he is not likely to let us forget anytime soon.

If you're considering coming to visit our little corner of the world and you enjoy old-timey things, I would definitely recommend a visit to Cass and a ride on the rail.  Just perhaps not of the murder mystery variety.

I took many photos while we were there, all of which I seem to have lost Just kidding, found my photos!  Up top, the steam engine arriving to pick us up.  If you're eagle-eyed, you'll notice that the engine is backwards.  Because of the route up the mountain, the engine had to both push and pull the train, so this position was the most logical.

Parents debating why exactly the engine is turned around in my photo (the one up top).

The neat lumber mill we passed on the way up.  Moving lumber was the Cass railroad's original purpose (as was the case for just about all of the trains in our neck of the mountains).

The cast of characters revealing the murderer after the ride (it was the lady in the pink dress--for shame!).

I took this to get the "Men at Work" sign, but ended up loving the bit with the parents even better.

The gorgeous sky as we drove home.

Dog and Creek: a Love Affair

I've had many dogs in my lifetime, all female.  My parents have always gotten them spayed, so I've never had to deal with that aspect of dog ownership.  Until Vista.  Warning: gross factor.  When Vista found me, she was in heat.  No big deal, I thought.  It's her time of the month, I thought.  It'll pass.  WRONG.  Do you have any idea how long a female dog stays in heat?  Here's a hint: A LONG BLOODY TIME (pun intended).  So even if it wasn't something I felt rather strongly about, and even if sweet Loretta from the Humane Society hadn't called and used her mean voice to ask me whether I was planning to get her fixed, even then, I would have done it.  Because not only is it a headache and a mess, I spent all my time watching her like a hawk and beating her suitors away with sticks.  No manners, those boys.

And so it was that on the morning of my birthday, Vista forfeited her chance to ever know the joy that is motherhood.  And I drove 60 miles round-trip through the mountains singing the Hallelujah Chorus.  Life was wonderful!  I was 25 and my dog was getting her uterus removed!!


That was two weeks ago.  I've been pretty vigilant about keeping her stitches dry, much to her grave disappointment.  Ever since she discovered that water, it is a wonderful thing, Vista has been in and out of our little creek.  She adores it.  I've been keeping her from the thing she loves best in all the world, and it's been HOT.

But her stitches are out now (I had to remove them myself.  Me.), and after a sweltering walk into town and back I gave her the green light on the creek.  This was her reaction:

In Which I Long For Water

When I moved back in May, I was still laboring under the impression that it didn't get hot in the mountains.  HA.  It's been in the nineties everyday this week, and please don't tell me it's hotter other places.  I grew up in the shadow of DC, where, like the Eskimos and snow, we have hundreds of words just to describe "humid."  Also: do you have air conditioning where you live?  That's what I thought.

The photo was taken last spring on an equally hot day back home, when I dragged the sprinkler out of the garage and shamelessly ran through it like a maniac in my backyard.  Leilani wasn't as keen on the running through, but she was all about drinking that cool, sweet water.  A feeling I can certainly relate to now!  I unearthed this photo in order to submit it to the Amateur Photography Contest here in town, part of the 44th Annual Pioneer Days.  It's kind of a big deal out here.  Anyway, to see this photo and the others I submitted (and whether they won anything), drop into McClintic Library on Friday or Saturday!

A Walk in the Woods at Hill Creek

Okay.  Family visit time.  My parents and their dogs arrived Thursday afternoon, rolling right up to the wood shop and raining chaos down on its unsuspecting denizens.  Vista was predictably THRILLED to see her cousins.  On Thursday night, we drove up to Hillsboro to eat at the Pretty Penny, which everyone adored.  I'm pretty certain that it's impossible to eat at the Pretty Penny and NOT adore it.  The fact that super-picky-eater me has tried something different each time I've eaten there and loved everything should say something.

Anyway, the plan for Friday was breakfast, then on to the Falls of Hill Creek.  I knew that it would be an abbreviated walk, as the trail is still partially closed due to damage inflicted by last winter's heavy snows.  And I wish I could show you lots of gorgeous waterfall photos, but the truth of the matter is that it's been so dry lately that the falls were barely trickling.  Plus, the Lower Falls, which is the second highest waterfall in West Virginia, was inaccessible due the aforementioned trail closures.  Sadness.  Still, it was a beautiful walk in the woods!

My father was fascinated by the Mountain Laurel, and pointed it out wherever we saw it.

I'm not usually a big taker-of-flower-photos, but I really couldn't resist.

We got there early enough that we were the only ones around and the dogs could run off-leash.  I love this shot of them all headed back to us!

A warning about the Hill Creek Falls trail: there are lots of stairs.  Like, a ton.  In some places you felt like you were scaling a tower.

Case in point.

Here's your one waterfall photo.  Yup.  This is of the Middle Falls.  Do a quick search for "Falls of Hill Creek" on Flickr and you'll see exactly how wide this can be.  I'm rather looking forward to seeing it frozen.

After leaving the Falls trail, we went to the Cranberry Glades Nature Center.  My mother, who works at the National Zoo at home, loved seeing the various animals they had there.

Like these fellows.  And then there was this gem of an exhibit:

Gotta love it!  We hopped on the Highland Scenic Highway for a lovely, circuitous route back to town, then picked up lunch at the Snak Shak, which we ate in Stillwell Park.

It was a perfect Pocahontas County morning!  We finished the day with a ride up at Cass, but that's another post entirely.

Badminton Bug

On the 4th, the girls and I had a few local VISTAs over for burgers, beer, sparklers, and, as it turned out, badminton.  Emily's mom had brought several rackets and birdies when she visited last, and we decided to break them out, despite the lack of a net.  We had such a blast that the three of us took the rackets out again last night just to play around and are talking about getting a net to set up in the far side of the yard. There's a local group which plays Ultimate Frisbee every week, which is a lot of fun, but I think badminton might be more our speed

A Preview of Posts to Come

My parents were here this weekend, and I have lots of stories to share, but I don't have all of my photos uploaded, so instead, here's a preview:

Not part of the preview.  The ice cream cake from Dairy Queen which was presented to Mrs. H (who shares my birthday) and me on Thursday.  It was delish!  And for the record, that ruler was our knife.  Cause that's how we roll at the woodshop.

More later!

Altitude Adjustment

I have a ton of photos and stories to share from this weekend, but I'm taking today off, mostly, so you'll get all of that tomorrow and the next few days.  For today, a little tip I stumbled across which would have been extremely useful a week ago!

Last Tuesday, I decided to bake some cookies.  I had a half cup of chocolate chips just hanging out in my freezer, so I picked up my handy-dandy Joy of Cooking.  The book has some years on it, to be sure.  It's a 1970s edition which belonged to my mother, but in my opinion its chocolate chip drop cookie recipe is second to none.  I've made batches of cookies using the very same recipe dozens of times, so imagine my surprise when the cookies came out flat and ugly.

They were tasty, to be sure, but ugly as all get-out, hoo-boy.  Was it because I don't have a sifter and used my hands instead?  That had to be it, didn't it?  I'd done everything else the same!  A conversation I had last night with Jamie set me straight.  Because the Allegheny Mountains are so much older than, say, the Tetons or the Rockies, they don't feel so very high.  It's easy to forget they we're up above 3,000 feet, but we are, and that difference can make the crucial difference in a recipe.  So today I did some research and came up with some tips.

The table is meant to apply to cakes, but it's actually pretty universal.  You can bet I'm going to have this on my fridge from now on.  This was my fatal cookie flaw: "Only cookies with lots of chocolate, nuts or dates need adjustment: reduce baking powder/soda by 1/2."  Whoops!  I used WAY too much baking soda, hence the bulldozer-flat cookies.

Here's the full list of adjustments for 3000+ feet:

- Add an additional egg to rich cakes to help keep them from falling.
- Increase flour: For each cup of flour increase by 1 tblsp
- Decrease fat: For each cup of fat, decrease 1 to 2 tblsp.
- Reduce baking powder: For each tsp., decrease 1/8 tsp to 1/4 tsp
- Reduce sugar: For each cup, decrease 0 to 1 tblsp.
- Increase liquid: For each cup, add 2 to 4 tblsp.
- Increasing oven temperature 15 to 25°F more will help set the batter before cells formed by leavening gases expand to much. 

I took my tips from The Cooking Inn's page on High Altitude.  I hope it will prove useful to any other first-time high altitude bakers!