Scott AFB and surrounds, June 2024 - Arrival

 

Moving day hasn’t quite settled into routine and wanting to arrive at Scott AFB before the visitor’s center closed and Sean was off work, it was once again a morning with an alarm clock.  But we set it with enough time to take our time, aided by the relatively short 250 mile leg predominantly on interstate.

Wide, fairly empty highway –  alternating between pot-holed falling apart, brand new smooth as ganache, and under construction – cut straight through the open farmland of southern Indiana and Illinois.  It was a brilliantly sunny day.  The air was hot at each rest area, filled with birdsong and buzzing insects and trucks whistling by on the highway.   The land would roll up and away, or down and away, with a few old trees watching over a field or anchoring a much younger hedgerow.

From the road, we looked out of the massive windshield at similar terrain, fields with tractors and combines and corn and what looked like wheat and soy.  And the miles slipped by, 10.3 of them per gallon.

Our arrival at Scott happened in stages.  There was the “exit the highway onto a weird road that had a speed limit of 50, people driving 70, and a surface so terrible I didn’t want to go over 30 in the motorhome.”  Then there was the access road with all of the sketchy joints you find just outside of all military bases (but not as sketchy as most places we’ve been), and then there was the welcome center and that gets its own paragraph.

The Dixon Welcome Center is a nice building, part highway rest area, part DMV, but with working A/C.  The parking lot holds a lot of cars.  I blocked off all but 1 entry to it with our home.  Then a guy parked behind me with his motorhome and car.  That sealed things up.  We had to take a number inside but turns out they weren’t using that system so we were helped pretty quickly and after a bit of technical difficulty and lots of apologizing from the nice lady helping us, we were issued something that looked like the hall pass we needed when I was in high school and told to have a nice stay.

We successfully made our way out of the parking lot and to the gate, protected by a series of barricade/obstacles forcing a serpentine route back and forth across the road.  Next up was the gate itself, imposing, I suppose, if you don’t already know it’s manned by extremely bored 19 year olds who can’t believe they fell for the advertising copy in the brochure and volunteered for a “security forces” job.

They looked at the “no escort required” passes and our driver’s licences and then waved us through.  Welcome to Scott.  Next stop, Fam Camp, a scenic few miles around the far end of the airfield, the golf course, the Illinois National Guard sublet, and an “exercise exercise exercise” field training area.

Fam Camp itself was great.  Sunny fields, plenty of shady trees, and two big ponds.  It was quiet, spacious, and friendly.

And as we were moving in, Sean showed up all cool on his motorcycle.  Axel wasn’t the only one who ran over for a hug.

They were happy to see each other

Scott Lake

Looking back at our site from the gazebo

Week 2 – Pocahontas, WV to Fort Boonesborough, KY to Belleville, IL -- Part 2

The sign says it all

This particular stay in Kentucky was more rest stop than residency.  We arrived at a sold-out state campground on Saturday evening.  The streets were filled with chalk art and kids on bikes darting about like Tie Fighters around an Imperial Star Destroyer.  Our site was in the back corner so we all got a good look at each other.  They were mostly big 5th wheel trailers towed by massive 4x4 pickups, we looked like some old people who made a wrong turn with our big RV and dinky Cruze in tow.  But it was a Chevy towed by a diesel, so we were okay.

We dropped the car and dolly and I pulled forward to back into the site.  Our across the street neighbors rushed over to Renee to say they’d move their truck so I could get in.  She assured them it wouldn’t be a problem and they watched in mouth open awe as I executed a perfect parking maneuver.  Truth be told, it wasn’t anything complicated, but to our new friends, many, many, many solo-cups to the wind, I was – well, I’m not going to use any of the words they did, but they were impressed and it was a nice way to end the drive.

The next day we spent trying to find a replacement tire.  Walmart was super friendly but couldn’t get me a tire before we left.  The guy helping me suggested we go to Rural King.  “It’s like a Walmart for Red-necks,” he said.  I always thought Walmart was the Walmart for Red-necks, but I didn’t say anything.  And after going to Rural King, I had to agree with his description.  We liked Rural King.  But no tires in our size.

We tried ordering tires from Walmart to ship to Sean but despite hours on the phone and literally 5 attempts following the customer service rep’s instructions, we couldn’t get our order through the automated fraud prevention system.  Amazon needed more time to ship which pushed delivery against our departure from Scott AFB, but with no alternative, we took the chance.  Worst case -- if we had to wait for the tires to arrive, it was more time with Sean.

On Tuesday we drove out to the Red River Gorge region of the Boone National Forest and hiked a couple of trails.  The first was Tar Ridge Trail, a pleasant out-and-back walk through the woods with nobody around but there were so many leaves we couldn’t see much.  The second was Natural Bridge Trail, a looping climb down into (and then up from) a gorge with mossy cliffs, undercuts, boulders, and children.  The natural bridge was halfway around and it was a very cool spot with a small waterfall, a wide sandy swimming hole surrounded by high, smooth cliffs, and families who made us wish our grandkids were with us splashing around.  Axel was a huge fan.

Before either trail though, we had to take Nada Tunnel Road.  We passed Nada Baptist Church and drove through the Nada Tunnel.  Despite the names, they were both very much what they were.  This video isn't ours, we weren't on a motorcycle and instead of following a pickup truck, we were behind a garbage truck.  That was scary.

The people we met in Fort Boonesborough we all very nice and treated us so much like family that we even got directions to a tire place that was “just up past where that ice cream place used to be.”  So, not only do I not have a tire, apparently I can’t get ice cream anymore either.

Nada Tunnel

Natural Bridge

The swimming hole

Axel facing his lepidopterophobia

Week 2 – Pocahontas, WV to Fort Boonesborough, KY to Belleville, IL -- Part 1

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Moving day.  We woke, by mutual agreement the night before, to an alarm.  And bright, early morning sunshine.  Breaking camp went smoothly and we were on the road by 0830.  We took a different route and Renee followed in the car down to Marlinton so I didn’t have to tow it.  We filled up the propane, loaded the car on the dolly (in half the time as Stafford), and headed West.

219 out of Marlinton had the ubiquitous steep switchbacks but we were quickly onto the relatively spacious and flat 39 rising and falling through hamlets with names like Stamping Creek and Big Otter, old churches repurposed as used bookstores, and the Monongahela National Forest.

In Summersville we stopped at a Food Lion for produce and a break then took the 4 lane 19 up to I-79.  There were traffic lights and traffic, but the challenging part of the drive was over.  When we pulled onto the Interstate it was like getting upgraded to First Class in the airplane.  Or at least what I imagine it would be like.

In Charleston, WV we met Justin and his step-son, Colton.  They were great people and we wish them well.  The way it came about: Renee and I were driving along, minding our own business, appreciating that we were on wide, albeit rough, pavement and enjoying the view of the WV capitol from our front window when an irritating beeping interrupted our journey.

I quickly traced the beeping to my TST TMPS system warning that the starboard dolly tire was experiencing a rapid deflation event.  We were on a large bridge with a wide shoulder and four lanes heading in our direction.  And a metric ton of traffic moving along at about warp 70.

It was not a great place to change a wheel and my toolbox was on the driver’s side.  (Lesson learned.)  After a quick visual inspection, we merged back onto the highway to travel (SLOWLY) the 1.25 miles to the exit at the end of the bridge.  There is no thrill-ride in any amusement park anywhere that can compete with our experience limping off the highway.

We made it but the exit was tight and residential, no place to park our rig and work on the trailer so we went another mile with a smoking tire and the beep beep beep of the flashers.  We found an empty parking lot near an Aldi and pulled over.  Justin pulled in behind in his old Explorer with utility trailer attached.

He thought we might need help.  He thought we we’d be a whole lot older - like 80s.  He seemed genuinely disappointed that I had tools, a spare wheelset, and even a jack…  ‘Cause he lived three blocks away and had a good floor jack.  So I told him I’d be grateful if he went to get it and by the time I had the lugnuts loosened, he was back.

Colton was 2 and helped me take off the nuts, pull off the wheel, put on the replacement, and then handed me each nut to replace.  I’ve met 20 year olds with less mechanical where-with-all.  I was a 20 year old with less.

It didn’t take long to be road-ready again, but we stood in the hot sun chatting for half an hour.  Justin’s genuine and earnest authenticity, his easy way with Colton, and the smooth flow of the conversation was another step back in time for us, reminiscent of being out running errands with our parents, bumping into someone they knew, and then spending the next hour in the soup aisle.

It was another time that something not cool turned into an opportunity to be reassured in the goodness of people.  The goodness of this country’s “sons of the soil.”  Another strike against my northern Virginia cynicism.

The rest of our trip was uneventful, smooth and empty tarmac coasting down from the mountains into the rolling hills of eastern Kentucky.   Our new campground was only 15 minutes off the interstate, passed a few miles of strip malls, open fields with signs advertising 5 acre lots for sale, and across a muddy river.  We’ll give it a chance, but our thoughts were still on the mountains.  And on Justin, how our journeys intersected, and our hope he keeps on rocking step 12.

It wouldn't be WV without a 1 lane bridge

Week 1 – Stafford, VA and Pocahontas, WV -- Part 4

Swingin' in the rain at Droop Mountain

When I was a kid I loved the ad for Tootsie Pops with the owl.  He determined that it only took three licks to reach the Tootsie Roll center.  It likewise only took us about three days to feel at home at Beaver Creek.  We also stopped trying to cram so much into single days.

We hiked through the Fred E. Brooks Arboretum one afternoon after morning rain.  It was listed as an easy four and half mile pizza shaped loop with optional trails cutting it into four pieces.  We opted to take the center trail along a small stream through dense vegetation reminiscent of the old show, “Tour of Duty”.  It was steamy-wet and buggy, with ferns and saplings and flowering shrubs so dense as to induce claustrophobia.  There was much fording using river stones and we saw a pile of scat we thought might be bear.  Axel loved it.  The trail, not the scat.

At the intersection of the two cross trails, we found a rock and log shelter that was mossy and dark, seemed to be almost melting into the jungle.  I mean temperate rainforest.  We took the turning and hiked up to the ridge.  Thick vegetation gave way to towering hardwoods and knee-high brambles as the trail cut back and forth, climbing steadily out of the humidity past rotting deadfalls and broken rock formations.  The trail back to the parking lot ran along the ridge with a soft breeze and once again the forest changed, opening up into the sort of mature woods I grew up in, with a high, leafy deciduous canopy, a few more evergreens, and the first birch we saw.  There was a rotten log along the trail recently disturbed by something looking for grubs.  We looked for cubs but saw only squirrels, chipmunks, birds, and deer.

Another day we drove out to Beartown State Park – Renee’s favorite part of our time in WV.  It was a maze of boulders, broken cliffs, crevices, cravises :), crags, caves, and overhangs.  It was every cool rock thing you’ve ever seen while out in the woods all put together into the greatest place ever.  We walked under trees – not just the branches, the entire root structure.  Moss and lichen, flowers, massive bird nests, signs warning not to stray off the boardwalk.  Boards missing from the boardwalk.  Every step there was something different.  We highly recommend it unless you are the sort of person who thinks one rock is pretty much just like all the others.

We did finally make it out to the cranberry bog and it was a neat place.  The climate really was colder – the Mountain Laurel that was losing its blossoms everywhere else was just coming into bloom there.  It was a swampy, vibrant, decaying destination for the mountain’s flotsam and jetsam with fish and butterflies and reindeer moss.

There was a visitor’s center for the bog where we encountered a copperhead and two timber rattlers.  The rattlers were bigger than I expected and I’m glad we didn’t see them on the first day.  There was a great interactive display for wildlife tracks and a scat identification board.  What we had seen in the arboretum wasn’t bear, it was cougar.

On Friday we had sunshine all day and drove up to the Greenbrier River Trail access point in Cloverlick for some bike riding.  It was another narrow back road up and over a mountain that felt more like somebody’s driveway than anything else.  We parked by the old railroad depot, got the bikes unloaded under the watchful eye of a local sitting on his porch, and began our first Rails to Trails experience.  For context, I’ve wanted to ride one of these trails since I was 15 and found out about the organization.  I even had a RtT sticker on my Nashbar touring bike.

Our destination was Sharp’s tunnel, a 500 yard hole through the mountain about 6 miles away (it was twice that from Marlinton, thus the Cloverlick drive).  It was a wide, nearly level crushed stone trail along the river, peaceful and green and bright.  A bit over a mile in, I had to stop because there was a big stone or some mud or something stuck in my rear tire.  Turns out the tire had failed and I had a giant bubble.  We rode back, loaded up the bikes, and headed to the Greenbrier Bikes shop in Marlinton.

Great shop, amazing people, and in no time… flat… we were back in business with a recommendation for coffee at the Rivertown Cafe.  Over “cherry cordial” coffees we decided to replace the tire on the other bike too.  Back to the shop, some more quick work and a fine truing job as well as shaking our heads at the cost of electric bikes, got us on the bikes for an… abridged… ride on the same trail starting in Marlinton but headed across the old rail bridge instead of up toward the tunnel.  

We went back into town for dinner at the Rivertown Cafe because the special was gluten free bacon and potato pizza and local artist Chicory Roots, a trio of fiddles, guitars, and mandolins, was playing.  Food was good, show was what we expected, and then we saw a pick-up drive down main street with four St. Bernards in the back.

It was a good day.  A good week.  We liked living in Pocahontas county.

No bears at Beartown

Beartown boardwalk

Giant bird nest

Lost in time at the cranberry bog

Being all cool and stuff

The tree is dead.  Long live the tree

Don't stray from the trail at Beartown

Even better than a cave

Ice cream at Amy's in Lewisburg

Lost?  Ask a bear

The Bog just felt different

Path to the Greenbrier River from the trail

The Cloverlick Depot

Site of coffee, GF pizza, and concerts

Yeah, that.

Week 1 – Stafford, VA and Pocahontas, WV -- Part 3

Along the Highland Scenic Highway

 

The part of the country we are in is considered a “temperate rainforest” so, much like the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii, it rains a bit most days. I used to have a problem with rain everyday but here it seems so natural I haven’t given it a second thought.

We decided to stop slacking off today and, despite the rain, get in some hiking and sightseeing. (Plus it was on the schedule I’d made.) We grabbed the glossy brochure with a map of the Highland Scenic Highway loop and Marlinton on it and headed out the door.

Beaver Creek Campground is small, with spacious, spread out sites and a lot of [relative] privacy. It was also pretty empty when we moved in and, this Monday morning, it seemed we were the only people still here.

In Marlinton we crossed the Greenbrier River at a traffic light and headed North past a couple of gas stations (all more than a quarter per gallon cheaper than Stafford), the IGA (!!!!), a Dairy Queen of all things, and a corner with a Walgreens, Ace Hardware, and some weird warehouse old rusty truck kind of place.

The Highland Scenic Highway sign directing us to our left turn wasn’t especially dramatic or expected, but we saw it in time and entered a road as empty as route 50 through Utah. The first scenic overlook was a dud if you were interested in seeing anything more than the inside of a cloud. Neat, but we’d already been doing that for a quick minute.

The dog got to play fetch off-leash in the grass so it was one of his favorite stops of the day.

Other overlooks gave us more dramatic views of mountains behind mountains behind mountains fading into a lavender haze. Valleys cut down through steep forested slopes with the occasional clearing of a farm or or unincorporated hamlet.

We hiked a short trail to see “honeycomb rocks.” If you like geology, check them out. The short version is that sandstone cracked, water leaking through the cracks deposited iron, the sandstone eroded, the iron veins stayed. Sort of like yarn-glue art when you pop the balloon.

Just West of the highway is the Cranberry Bog. It’s a high altitude, bowl-like depression with a tundra ecosystem. And cranberries in a massively old and deep peat bog. We hiked a short trail to the overlook and saw that it was indeed a high altitude bowl-like depression.

High Rock Trail is an out-and-back 1.5 (3) miler between 4250 and 4450 feet elevation. It winds around two ridges and opens out in a breath-taking grassy area with split rail fence along a cliff face and a view out over everything. We ate our sandwiches looking down on circling hawks and vultures, out over stream and road and powerline cuts across the mountains, to rolling hills and flat farmland.

The view is why you should take the hike if you ever get the chance, but the trip out and back was filled with strange giant mushrooms, white and pink mountain laurel just starting to shed their blossoms, ancient hardwoods, ferns, and moss covered boulders stacked the way our grand daughter arranges kitchen pots.

There were also a lot of spider webs and black flies. But there were moths and butterflies too and we saw a blue crayfish. Crawdad here in the WV. We found out later they are regular crawdads but because of the mineral content of the water on the mountain, they turn blue. Having actually seen one of these fantastical looking creatures, I now officially believe in the Big Foot.

From there we drove down to the Falls of Hill Creek. We were supposed to go to the Cranberry Bog but I missed the turn.

The Falls is actually a series of 3 falls, each one a bit taller and more dramatic. It’s an easy trip down to the bottom if you are comfortable with stairs. Lots of stairs. Including a four story metal fire escape-like structure that is bolted into the side of the eroding cliff face. Fortunately it wasn’t that rusty and since it was steel grating, you could see all the way down to the sharp rocks below with every_single_step. Axel did not care for those steps and, much like a cat walking across snow, carefully chose each footfall. Crazy staircases aside, it was a neat place to spend an hour and a great workout to climb out of. As an added bonus, there was a yellow-ringed black snake hanging out in the parking lot.

With nearly 20k steps a piece in the day already, we decided to head back home rather than find the cranberry place. Back in Marlinton we made a quick stop at the IGA for fresh produce and some cookies, and stopped at the local outfitter for bear spray. It comes with a lot of warnings, many of them must have somebody’s name attached. But what I liked was how much effort was put into explaining bears, how and why they react the way they do, and the admonishment not to go looking for trouble.

That’s not just good advice in the bear’s country. That’s good advice.

Great lawn for playing fetch

Shortcut down from High Rock

Honeycomb Rock

The water gives and takes

The three of us and a stick

I think he lichens us

Life is everywhere

If you stay on the trail, you don't need a map

Purple Mountain Majesties

Blue guy

It's not a long trail, just a lot of steps

The lower falls

Only about 6"

Infinity lawn

The middle falls

A [board] walk in the woods

Wish you were here