West Virginia in the Fall

One of the places we stopped briefly last week was the birthplace (1892) of Pearl Buck. (Hillsboro County, West Virginia) She received, as you know, the Nobel Prize in Literature for her six books on China (the year before I was born)...her most famous being The Good Earth. Unfortunately we were too late for a guided tour. But we stopped and soaked in a little history for a moment thinking about her work and life. She did not die until 1973 and is buried in PA. Her life was absolutely fascinating and the link on her name is to Wikipedia...a picture of her is there (she was beautiful!!!) and another one of this house which I read was her home for only 3 months.

When your husband has "trains of all kinds" as his major hobby...it's fun to try to combine our interests. We stayed for two nights in Lewisburg, WV last week with wonderful watercolor artist, Phyllis Crickenburger and her husband Bill. They live in a charming old home there in the middle of so much history and in a valley of the Allegheny Mountains. So it was on one dark and forbidding morning we set up to drive the hour up the mountains from there to Cass where the old restored railroad and logging camp was. Time for a ride on a steam railroad!!! The rain held off for awhile and when it did finally come it was just a gentle rain and did not give us much trouble (although it was cold...only 41 degrees). We could see our breath and the hot coffee at the Whittaker Stop never tasted so good!!!

The whistle on this old steam engine was the best one I've ever heard. I did this sketch first with a water soluble pencil and then added a little watercolor with a water brush. Later I added some ink, glued in the ticket and added a little map of the the train route from Cass to Whittaker with the switchback.