I Love Living in this Valley!

Today, November 2, I spent some time this morning driving around taking some photos of the more outstanding trees here in the valley.  Bridgewater, Fadley Road, Centerville Road, Union Springs Road, and the road leading up to Reddish Knob.  Unfortunately, the photos just don't do the scenery justice, however. 

Hike to High Knob Fire Detection Tower

My first time hiking to High Knob Fire Tower in the George Washington National Forest.  This tower is on the list of National Historic Lookout sites, built in 1939 by WWI vets, finished by the CCC in 1940, and rehab'd in 2002, it is the last standing fire tower in the GW National Forest.  It is empty but the catwalk is open to the public -- those who want to hike in -- about two miles -- uphill -- from the parking lot on US 33 at the Virginia-West Virginia state line.

 

There's also a High-Knob Tower in the Jefferson National Forest, but that one is much newer and many miles to the south.  This High-Knob Fire Tower sits right on the VA-WV state line, as does the sign shown below.  There is a USCGS bench marker right behind this sign which marks the state line to the nearest 1/16th of an inch.

View to the southwest, below, looking into West Virginia.
The green stripe in the center of the picture is a grassy road about a mile away

 

Below:  View to the north.

Below:  the inside of the fire tower.  The wire visible in the top of the windows is actually the lightning arresting gear running around the outside of the rafters, grounding the tower from lightning strikes.

 

The tower is just under 2 miles from the (relatively) new parking lot on US Highway 33 on the Virginia/West Virginia border.  The hike is gorgeous, but it is almost totally uphill all the way, and the last half-mile is very, very steep, almost like climbing stairs.  It is an invigorating hike.  I had to stop every 100 feet or so and rest and catch my breath.

Cardinal and Goldfinch

Crummy picture, taken through the screen on telephoto.  But the first time I've caught a cardinal and a goldfinch together.

Elkhorn Lake, Staunton Dam and Aquaduct, and Braley Pond

 Above is a photo of Elkhorn Lake, in the George Washington National Forest, up in the Allegheny Front mountains, about 20 miles west of our home.  This is about 3 miles from the Virginia-West Virginia border (on the Virginia side, of course).

Above:  View from the top of Elkhorn Lake Dam, looking down at the outlet pipes.  The lake empties into the North River, which combines with the Middle and South Rivers (at Port Republic) to form the North Fork of the Shenandoah River.

Below: View of the Elkhorn Dam from the lake side.  The weather is perfect, nice and cool, I was surprised there weren't people around.  Of course, being miles into the wilderness might explain the lack of a crowd.

This is the lake above Staunton Dam, on the North River.  This is about 3 miles downstream from the Elkhorn Lake..

 This is the Staunton Dam, on the North River.  This dam appears to have been built around, oh, say, about the time of the Roman Empire, given its dilapidated state.   

 The spillway is about 50 feet high, although it looks a lot less from this angle.

 Trout hiding under the driftwood in the pool beneath the dam.  They were about 10 inches long.

 The sign at the Staunton Dam.  The water intake building is in the background.

 I stumbled across this cave in the forest about half a mile below the Staunton Dam.  This cave looked interesting, so I investigated.

 The cave appeared to be gated and heavily locked.

 This is the view between the bars, using the flash.  This appears to be the entrance to a tunnel which holds the piping for the aquaduct which carries the water from the Staunton Dam down to the valley to the city of Staunton's water works.

Braley Pond Picnic Area, just off of Highway 250 west of Staunton.  View from the top of the Braley Pond Dam.  Braley Pond is part of the headwaters for the Middle River.  This is about ten miles south of Elkhorn Lake and 12 miles south of Staunton Dam.

Allen's Homecoming from Afghanistan

 Cutting the yellow ribbon off Mama Marge's tree.

 With Mama Marge and Daddy Bill...

I'm proud of my soldier.

Ham Radio Emergency Station

Here is my emergency ham radio station, deployed in the field behind the Weyers Cave Community Center.  That's the Cave View Farms in the background. 

Every year in June, hams all over the country unplug from the grid, and go out in the field and set up a self-contained portable ham radio station, testing our ability to operate completely without cell towers, landlines, cable, and even the commercial power systems.  Being completely self-contained, we do not rely on any infrastructure.   This is why when an earthquake, hurricane or other disaster devastates an area, usually the first reports out are from a ham radio operator.

When all else fails, ham radio usually works.  With our batteries and solar panels, we contacted stations from Ontario to Puerto Rico, from Maine to Ohio.

Family History -- Trouble Brewing?

In 1703, Queen Anne of England commissioned Benjamin Fordham from Nottinghamshire England to come to her city (Anna - Polis, ---  or Annapolis, in the colony of Maryland) and start the New World's first brewery.

Benjamin was successful, but he died in 1715 around age 40.  His son (also named Benjamin) sold the brewery and moved the family to North Carolina.  He is also credited with starting the family legend that alcoholism runs in the family.  (They didn't really know about alcoholism back then, but Benjamin's writings made it clear that the Fordham's in his day apparently tended to overdo it when it came to drinking.) 

This son Benjamin married the daughter of a Hueguenot missionary (Martha LaPierre), -- which might have had something to do with the legend, too.

This Benjamin is buried in Craven County North Carolina.  He and Martha had a son whom they named Benjamin Jr., who had a son named Benjamin III who  moved to Sourthern Georgia.  Benjamin III had a son named Zenus, who had a son named Jim Zenus Fordham, who had a son named Jean Fordham, whose son was Lawrence Fordham.  Lawrence was my dad.

Getting back to the story:  A few years ago, in 1995, a wealthy lawyer in Annapolis decided to try his hand at microbrewing.  This fellow is not related to the family that we know of. (Even if he were, few of us would admit having a lawyer in the family.).   This lawyer purchased an old building at 33 West Street in downtown Annapolis to hold is microbrewery and pub.  The building dates from around the time of the American Revolution.   He planned to call his microbrewery "Rams Head Tavern".  Being a lawyer, he did his own title search, and discovered that this very plot of land was the plat chartered to Benjamin Fordham in 1703!   It is uncertain (and unlikely but entirely possible) that the building (shown below in the photo I took this evening) is the original one owned by the Benjamin from Nottinghamshire.  

 

After discovering the original ownership of the land, the lawyer decided to name the brewing portion of the operation "Fordham Brewing".

The specialized recipe for the flavored "Wisteria" beer (flavored with wisteria blossoms and real honey), and the dark lager "14 barrels" brew, supposedly were found in the British archives with Benjamin's commission papers.  The success of those beers quickly far outstripped the capacity of the microbrewery, so the owner built a much larger operation in Dover, Delaware.  (Why Dover?  I have no idea, and no one else that I spoke with knows either.)

Today after my conference presentation in Dover, I drove across town and took the Saturday tour of the current operation.

In 2009, the Fordham Brewing Company purchased the Dominion Brewing Company, including its trademarks, recipes, and rights to the Dominion brands of Ginger Ale, Root Beer, Orange Soda, and other soft drinks.  So this factory now produces both lines of products.  Personally, I found the Root Beer a little too light for my taste, even though it is made with real sugar and no high-fructose corn syrup.  But it was still fun taking the hour-long tour!  This brewery now makes 29,000 barrels of beer a year (a barrel is 31 gallons... do the math!  It's a bit more than Benjamin made in 1703!)

Delaware State ... Wanna Bet?

I was surprised today to discover that Delaware State University is right across the highway from ...  Dover Downs!  Yep, that's right, the campus main entrance literally shares a traffic signal with the famous Dover Downs Hotel, Casino, Horsetrack, and the Dover International Speedway!

 

Mountain Laurel on Furnace Mtn Trail SNP

I was up on the Furnace Mountain Trail in the Shenandoah National Park a few days ago, and the mountain laurel blossoms were just coming into their peak. Furnace Mountain tops out at around 2100 feet.  So I would imaging that a little bit further up in altitude (such as Trayfoot, or some of the peaks in the Central section of the park) will be blooming and probably coming into their peaks later this coming week... especially once the rain stops and the sun comes back out again.