So Thursday, October 9, I flew into Indianapolis and Mom, Marc and Becky came to pick me up at the airport. I had researched airlines before I booked my flight to see what airlines were taking the best precautions to prevent the spread of the virus and learned that Delta got the best marks. The first leg of my flight was from Portland to Minneapolis. I had the entire 3 seats on my side of the plane to myself. Everyone is required to wear masks in the airport as well as on the plane and they handed me a packaged Purelle wipe as I boarded the plane to wipe down my tray table and seat belt buckle and whatever else I felt needed wiping down. Three hours later I arrived in Minneapolis, went from one concourse to another to catch my connection to Indianapolis. This plane was much less COVID careful, in my opinion. Each side of the plane had 2, rather than 3 seats and I was seated right next to someone else. I wore a face shield as well as my mask on this flight, out of caution, but, good grief, that extra layer of facial covering seemed to increase my body temperature exponentially!! It felt so very good to get off that plane and out into the fresh air after picking up my luggage.
Spent Thursday evening visiting and catching up with Mom, Marc and Becky. On Friday, October 10th Kathi came to pick me up at 11am and Girls Weekend officially began!!
We headed east and after 5 stops along the way we arrived in Charleston and the cute house that Kathi found for us to stay in on Air BNB. Kathi had a paper due by midnight for one of her classes (she is working toward her PhD), so part of the drive was spent with her dictating notes to me that would help her get the paper done once we were settled in. As always, I find helping Kathi with her projects and homework quite interesting. This assignment was to answer a couple of questions regarding caregiving by both lay people and professionals as described in a book called Cancer and Death. A Love Story in Two Voices, while incorporating types of caregiving described in a paper that was assigned in conjuction with the book. So upon arrival to our home away from home, we loaded in our luggage, along with the groceries that Kathi bought for the trip, chose our bedrooms and settled in. While Kathi worked on her paper, I made dinner with one of the prepped dinner kits that Kathi had ordered from Green Chef. I had never had one of these types of dinner before and was quite impressed. It was stuffed peppers which included hamburger with a Dijon mustard sauce and butternut squash cooked up with a spicy paprika spice mix, then baked in the oven. It was actually quite tasty!
Kathi had me proofread her paper once she was done with it. I offered up a few suggestions for changes, which she made and got the paper submitted by 11:35! WooHoo!! Before calling it a night and turning in Kathi tossed the states. Here is what remained face up, there remains in the running for next years trip.
We talked about what our plan was for Saturday and we decided, since rain was in the forecast, that we would go to the J Q Dickinson Salt-Works for our first West Virginia outing. I came across this place in a daily newsletter I signed up for called Only in West Virginia. There is actually a newsletter like this for every state and I found it to be very helpful in getting ideas for places to visit. This place was fascinating and completely satisfied the nerd in both of us and I would highly recommend it to anyone traveling to Charleston, West Virginia. From their website https://www.jqdsalt.com/ : A seventh generation salt-making family harvests an all-natural salt by hand, from an ancient ocean trapped below the Appalachian Mountains of the Kanawha Valley in West Virginia.
Once done with the tour of the facility we went to the shop where we were able to taste samples of their salt. They have several flavors of salt. Regular, traditional salt along with smoked salt, Bloody Mary Salt, mushroom salt and ramp salt to name a few. I imagine that you are asking yourself about ramp salt, so let me enlighten you. Ramps are a type of wild leek and are said to be the "holy grail" of wild edibles. When reading all the "Only in West Virginia" newsletters, ramps were mentioned in nearly every one as a beloved staple at most restaurants here. We have not had the opportunity to taste any yet, but I hope we the the chance before we leave. https://www.eater.com/2015/4/10/8384255/ramps-season-explained
It was raining as we walked around the grounds of the facility and there was much activity going on related to a wedding that was scheduled to take place there at 4 pm. While the reception area was all under the cover of a large tent, unfortunately the ceremony itself was to take place in the beautiful garden area of the grounds where there was no cover. Kathi and I were hoping that the rain stopped long enough for the ceremony to take place.
While on the tour of the facility, one of the other folks on the tour mentioned having seen some unusual cows in the pasture adjacent to the property. Our guide explained to us that these are Belted Galloway cows, also call "oreo cows" because of their unusual coloring. I will let the photo do the talking.
Apparently these are cows that were originally bred in the Galloway region of southwestern Scotland. I had never seen one of these cows (and I have seen a lot of cows in my lifetime) so found this interesting.
We then made our way back to our house with a couple of stops (CVS and Kroger) to pick up a few items that we discovered that we needed. Kathi made dinner (tonight was sausage and veggies with pesto...another Green Chef dinner), while I started writing this! This dinner was ok, but we both decided we liked Friday evening's meal better. We then watched a couple of episodes of "Silent Witness" on Amazon Prime, I tossed the states and we turned in. Since rain is forecast, once again, for the entire day tomorrow, we have decided that we will stay in most of the day giving Kathi a chance to catch up on homework and grading and get out for a walk if there is a window when it ISN'T raining or just sprinkling.
What states are left? This toss eliminated a LOT of states and we are now down to 4. Nevada, Colorado, Massuchusets and Connecticut. Tomorrow's toss could be our final toss on this trip. We will see!!
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