Adventure on the Rail Trail

For those of you who don't live in WV, we have a really neat system of hiking/biking trails called Rail Trail. Basically, they are miles and miles of trails that follow an old railroad line. The tracks have been removed, and in some places they have been paved or covered in crushed gravel. They are pretty cool as you get to use the old train bridges or tunnels.

We have really been trying to walk more lately. Since we had no plans yesterday evening, we decided to hop in the car and drive the 10 minutes to Prickett's Fort State Park and walk on the Mon River Trail. As the name implies, it follows the river.

We've been stuck walking because....well, the cost of a bike for me and a bike trailer for Celia is a little much for us. Every time I walk the trail I get closer to buying one though!

Last night, we walked all the way to Catawba. Which may be a booming metropolis off the trail, the from the trail looks like the place that time forgot. There a big, white, boarded up house that sits right on the river. I want to buy it tomorrow, pry those boards off the windows, and move right in. (Because in my little fantasy, all the wavy old glass is intact under those boards and as soon as I wipe everything down with some Mr.Clean, it will be perfect). It's just so Fried Green Tomatoes.

I mentioned my fantasy to Chris and he shared with me in no uncertain terms I could put that one to rest. That's okay. Because in my fantasy, as I'm walking around the house checking it out, the neighbors come out. See, they own the property and hate the old place. They'll let me have it for just a couple grand if I just promise to do something with it. So every day Chris will go to work and Celia and I will drive out and just ramble around my big ole river house until we get it all fixed up and pretty and begin hosting river parties with the best ice tea you have ever tasted......and I won't be stressed out about my toddler getting out of the house and falling in the river that is RIGHT THERE because in this little dream, my girl doesn't run away at every given opportunity.

Okay, back to reality. It's a really nice trail. We got to cross a bridge and see lots of birds and little forest creatures. We saw one cardinal. That's the WV State Bird, in case you didn't know. So that makes them a little special. Not all that special though, because you can see them just about anywhere. We even have one brave bird (uh, we have 3 cats) living in the trees behind out house. He sits on our fence.

We also saw a cute little blue bird, which you don't see every day. Plus a chipmunk and a millipede (last time we saw one, I screamed and ran away). I did not personally see the nasty bug this time because Celia and I left the boys behind. See, my husband possesses this genetic abnormality that causes him to make noise ALL of the time. Singing, humming, clicking, whistling, tapping, never ending noise. He passed this on to our son. So Celia and I left the little noisemakers in the dust and moved to a quieter area.

She tends to be pretty quiet, with the occasional burst of conjugating her baby verbs. ("Boob-a fada, boob-a dada, boob- a mama).

So anyway, we made it all the way to Catawba. I looked at the map today, and it said it was only 0.9 miles. No way! That freaking map is WRONG. It's way farther than that.

On the way back we heard a train coming and really REALLY rushed to get back to the bridge I thought we might get to see the train cross....but it was across the river. Turns out that bridge we walk under turns into the MCTrail.....trains don't use it anymore.