Canaan Valley Photo Outing



Welcome to the Ohio Valley Camera Club - Canaan Valley Photo Outing - September 2007

The trip to the mountains of West Virginia by the camera club members was a great success. We formed the caravan on Friday, September 21, 2007 and left Huntington around 6:00pm. We traveled from Huntington West Virginia to Harmon West Virginia stopping at a Shonys in Flatwoods West Virginia for dinner. We then ended up at the cabin around 11:00pm with everyone exhausted but excited about Saturday and the first ever photo outing.
Saturday morning we fixed a country breakfast of Scrambled Eggs, Bacon, Biscuits, Fried Potatoes and Onions. After breakfast we all loaded up in Jeff Bryson's van and headed across the valley to Black Water Falls. Black Water Falls is one of the best photo spots in the state. The falls are 57 feet in height form from the Black Water River. The river springs to life in Canaan Valley and continues its journey to Dry Fork River about 12 miles downstream at Hendricks West Virginia. From there it continues its journey to the Ohio River and then to the Mississippi and finally ending up in the Gulf of Mexico.

	The club members wasted no time in capturing the beauty of the falls. It was great time of sharing our photo knowledge and helping each other capture the perfect picture. I was also amazed at how we can all be in the same place taking pictures of the same thing and come up with such diversity in our pictures.

After our stop at Black Water Falls we traveled to see the windmills near Tomas West Virginia. Each of these turbines can power 500 average homes! It was overcast which only helped make the shots a bit more dramatic. But the overcast weather did not last long and the rest of the trip was perfect blue skys. Most of us tried to create images that showed the movement of the blades. One of my shots came out ok but did not compare to this one for effect.

	After the Windmills of Thomas our country breakfast was starting to ware off which worked out perfect as I knew of a great place to have a heath food type sandwich. It was a short trip back to the small town of Thomas and the Purple Fiddle. One of the other treats of Thomas West Virginia was the craft and antique shops. One of the shops was having a wine tasting and we all had to partake in the offerings. I found two absolutely great desert wines. The West-Whitehill Wine of West Virginia has two wines that are a must to add to your wine collection. Sweet Mountain Spice Wine is a rich red wine with added natural flavors of cloves and cinnamon. Great for Christmas time and can be served hot or cold. My other favorite is Raspberry Royale Wine which is blended with 70% grape wine and 30% red raspberry wine. This is a nice after dinner wine and is great served with cheese.

The Purple Fiddle has a interesting and mostly healthy menu. A sample menu can be found at http://www.purplefiddle.com/menu.html But we all agreed that the chips and homemade salsa was wonderful. The other treat that the Purple Fiddle has to offer is the great live music. But since the music does not start till about 8:00pm it was not part of this trips agenda. Maybe next time.

	After a wonderful lunch we traveled back across the valley to Seneca Rocks West Virginia. It seemed everywhere you looked there was a great photo opportunity. We had waited till the evening to visit Seneca Rocks as the sun is in the perfect location to illuminate the face of the rocks.

	Everyone started taking pictures from the moment we got out of the car. Our youngest member of the group "Roman" was busy capturing the moment and I had the opportunity to capture his image. Who knows he may be a National Geographic Photographer someday.

Every year there a hundreds of climbers who take on the challenge of climbing the shear rock face of Seneca Rocks. What made this day different is a girl fell. She survived the fall but some said she had broken her pelvis and she had a severe concussion. We all watched as it took rescuers about three hours to safely remove her from a ledge on the right face of the mountain and get her to the awaiting rescue helicopter. We did not find out her condition but we all hope she has a speedy recovery. This is part of the climbers challenge and sometimes the not so forchunate fate.

	We all said goodbye to the cabin and Canaan Valley as we prepaird for the trip home.

On the way home on Sunday the group wanted to make one more stop to assure that everyone had a full camera memory card. So we made a detour and visited a West Virginia Wildlife Reserve and Park. It made for a great ending to a wonderful photo outing. We all agreed that we need more of these and should start planning for the OVCC Photo Outing Number 2 as soon as possible.