Day One, 2013 Vacation

My first objective on this vacation is to see Cass Scenic Railroad, in Cass, WVa. Options include a complete drive to Cass. This is over 6 hours of driving, in one day. If there were a good place to stay, that might be good. Google maps did not give a good place. Those that looked like possibilities were a little iffy in quality. I tool a different option and went as far as Covington, Va. And find an nice place to spend the night. I would have around and hour drive on day two. I had too much time that afternoon so I I drove downtown to see what I could see. I took another drive into Clifton Forge that would be better for train watching.
I drove past the C& O Heritage center. I stopped but it was after hours, so I took a few still pictures of what I could, from the parking lot.



As I stood there a young man walked up and he offered to let me enter, even thought it was after hours. I did not want to keep him but we did talk for more than an hour. On my way back to the motel I did take on video of a CSX freight, Westbound.
Over all, a good decision to stay here before heading for WVA.

Planning and More

It has  been a while since my last post. For one thing, Just to post to show videos is a bit much. I simply upload videos to YouTube and leave it at that. It is only the still pictures that might need some input and display. However, I take very few of those, these days, when it comes down to trains. Some of my stills are not something you might be interested in, such as family pictures of my niece dressed up a Emily Earnhardt for her class presentation on Earnhardt. It was a cute picture but hardly news or of interest to others, except family.

Since Christmas, I worked on some trip planning. As a friend calls such work, they are projects, something to do in the boring evenings, home alone, and again alone. Over time, I have prepared out and back trips and vacation trips that I may never take. I planned a vacation to West (by God) Virginia. I than tried to expand my Philadelphia agenda to include Pittsburgh and Cleveland and Buffalo. I could not make it work, by the way. Buffalo has light rail and that would be nice to see. The same with Pittsburgh and Cleveland. I noticed that each city was three hours, driving, for another. Than I noticed they were only three hours out of WVA. So, instead of trying to attach them to a New England or Northeast trip, or even a trip to Chicago, they would be better to attach to a WVA trip. If I didn't mind the drive, it could only add one day to the trip to WVA.

Toward Spring, this past year, I had it all planned out, but had not thought about what I wanted to do for vacation. I finally chose to do the WVA trip. So! More on that, so hang on to your hats!

Okay, just for a teaser here is a picture I took of the skyline of Pittsburg: