12/27/13 Train derailment in Vivian, WV, and repair

On Dec. 27, 2013, a Norfolk Southern train with five locomotives and 111 cars derailed near the Elkhorn Inn in Vivian, WV. It was headed from Bellevue, Ohio to Linwood, North Carolina;12 of the derailed cars were takers containing asphalt tar, two carried soybean oil, one grain, and one railroad cross ties. One of asphalt tar takers ruptured, and spilled liquid tar into Elkhorn Creek. which solidified when it cooled in the creek, and West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection personnel and Norfolk Southern Railway environmental people were called to the scene, as well as Kimball Fire Department personnel. Jimmy Gianato, Director of West Virginia Emergency Management, as well as Chief of the Kimball Volunteer Fire Department, was also called to the scene. About 700 feet of track was damaged in the derailment, and Norfolk Southern stopped all train traffic on the line until the next day; crews worked through the night to restore service on this very busy line. 
The derailment occurred a few hundred yards west of the Landgraff grade crossing. After the derailment a locomotive and several cars were moved east of the site. As a result of the derailment, the back of the train blocked the Vivian Bottom grade crossing for several hours until another unit was brought in to make a break in the train at the grade crossing so residents of Vivian could access their homes.
Dan took our new camera (yes- we Finally got a DSLR to take good train photos for our railfan guests!), and took the photos below, one of which was used by the Register-Herald  newspaper as their photograph for the story: http://www.register-herald.com/local/x1186898232/Train-derails-in-McDowell-County 

The good news: There were no injuries, no evacuations were needed or ordered, and containment booms were set in place in the creek almost imediately to prevent the asphalt tar from migrating down Elkhorn Creek; as a result, no ecologial damage was apparently done. This is very important to our area, as Elkhorn Creek has been called "the best wild trout stream in the USA", and is home to a pleathora of 24"-32" brown and rainbow trout, which bring Trout Unlimited members and fly-fishing guests here from across the nation. 
On December 28, as Dan took the repair photos, he saw several out-of-state fly fishermen fishing in Elkhorn Creek in Landgraff, near the Elkhorn Inn. :-)

The first 13 photos below were taken by Dan shortly after the derailment occurred:

 

Workers on the scene

Workers on the scene

Dan took the photos below the next day, Dec. 28, 2013, during the repair operation, and as Norfolk Southern got the trains running again. The follow-up article in the Register-Herald: 
http://www.register-herald.com/todaysfrontpage/x1186899194/Resident-living-near-tracks-recounts-Friday-s-derailment 

The Norfolk Southern trains up and running again!

Kimball Tunnel
Check out the frozen waterfall! Yes, it's COLD here now!

Fly-Fishin' Elkhorn Creek! (When Guests Become Friends, Part I)

This has been quite a week- in the very best way! As Inn-Keepers, it's a wonderful thing when guests truly become friends, and that is what these last few weeks have been about! I'll start with this weekend, when Tony "The Trout" Wheeler gave us a day's fly-fishing lesson on Elkhorn Creek - the great little trout stream right behind the Elkhorn Inn - and my next post will be on last weekend's "Dueling Dining-Car Chefs" event with James Porterfield, author of "From The Dining Car" and "Dining By Rail". 

Readers of this blog know that after 8 years of living at the Elkhorn Inn on one of The best trout streams in the USA, in April we finally found the time to take a great "Fly-Fishing 101" class with Bobby Bower of Pro River Outfitters www.profishwv.com at Glade Springs, and go fishing with him on Glade Creek-on-the-New (where Elisse caught her Very First Trout On A Dry Fly!). But what we REALLY needed to learn was how to fish 'our' creek, and Tony Wheeler, fly-fisherman extraordinaire and a frequent guest of the Inn, offered to teach us! The puppies & I ordered Dan & I fly rods, chest waders, and boots from Cabela's as a late DogMother's Day & early DogFather's Day prezzie, and Tony helped us set it all up and then spent a morning and afternoon with us in Elkhorn Creek, teaching us a TON of stuff! We now know just enough to be Really dangerous! LOL

T showed the patience of a saint with a couple of newbies, with the result that Dan got several great bites, and Elisse (me) actually hooked a number of fish (that, yes, got away!) The only problem with Tony is that he is a REALLY great fisherman, and can instinctively read the water like a book, and so when he casts, (unlike us, mere mortals that we are), he hooks a fish- almost all the time! I know (from the sound of his furiously gnashing teeth when a 20" trout escaped his clutches, and the fact that he almost grabbed the rod out of my hands several times) that it had to be Incredibly frustrating for him to have a couple of neophytes let fish after fish get away! For me (since we're doing catch-and-release & not my usual fishing-for-dinner), the catching & netting of a fish wasn't as important as just hooking them- & learning how to watch for them- because unlike with other fishing I've done (such as bang-the spinner on-the-salmon's-head fishing in Kodiak, AK, or drop-reel-&-puke for yellow fin off Mexico, or Dan's Special Ops Survival Course Army fishing), you really Don't feel these guys bite! Tony hooked us both up with a double-fly combination of a wet nymph and a floating grasshopper thingee that even "Ms. Eagle-Eye NOT" could see, and while HE saw the fish take the fly, I saw & felt nothing the first three times- but I Finally saw the bobbing grasshopper go down, and so then tried to hook the fish- and the 5th time I actually did it! All by myself! And then I fought it and watched its silver back break the water, thought I had it, and finally lost it! All by myself! LOL  It truly IS a magical sensation- and to do it in our very own creek was a rush!
In addition to being so sure-footed that he can literally run the rocky creek through thigh-high water (a feat which amazes me, as I am 4'9 1/2" tall and of the make-sure-one-foot-is-firmly-planted-before-you-lift-the-other-one school of creek-wading), T has eagle-eyes, topped with polarized glasses, and so can see trout where I see naught but churning water! He taught us the rudiments of reading the water and how to figure out the places where trout like to play, as well as the fly-fishing version of what is known in the military as "situational awareness" (as in "Gee, I wonder what's coming out of that pipe..."), and I even learned to tie that cool "figure-8" knot (spitting on it, as opposed to sticking it in my mouth), that now enables me to tie on a fly! By the end of the day Dan & I had truly got our fly-fishing feet wet (figuratively, not literally, as that is Not something one wants to do in the creek T fondly refers to as "the dirty little sister")!  I've now a list of things (Woolly Buggers, Copper John nymphs, leaders, tippets, nail clippers, polarized fishing glasses, and yes, gold-beaded, size 14, olive soft hackles...) to buy, so we can get back out there ASAP! T's knowledge of Things Trout is truly encyclopedic, and the flies he hand-ties are fairly amazing; like me, our other Inn guest was delighted by the variety and beauty of the flies and nymphs and other small creatures T's crafted from feathers & fur, beads & thread... I cherish the Black Woolly Bugger I tied at our dining table with T & his friends, & this time he bestowed upon us his hand-tied Copper Tony nymphs (with which I caught the fish that got away). While I desperately want to keep fishing with it, as it's definitely my Lucky Fly, part of me wants to frame it... Or pin it on the cool Col. Blake-esque fishing hat I intend to get myself!
(Being a Native NYC Girl, many folks assume that I'm the Green Acres' Eva Gabor of McDowell County, & I do like to have a bit of fun with that- as you can see from the glitter-encrusted
Nawlins sunglasses I am wearing as we fish. But I pride myself on having grown up fishing with both my Oklahoma-chicken farm-born WWII WAC soldier momma & Ukrainian-born theatre actress grandmother, having been an Aggie & FFA, having worked on Kibbutz in Israel packing live fish & shoveling turkey manure, and having been an Israeli Army soldier myself! So do not judge a person solely by her penchant for high-heeled shoes! LOL)

One of the things we learned  this weekend from Tony, who is a Chemical Engineer as well as native West Virginian with a passion for fishing and hunting and his home state, is the definitive answer as to why, despite all the coal mining, Elkhorn Creek isn't poisoned, and is, instead, one of the best trout streams in the USA: Our McDowell County Coal is only 1% sulphur; 60% is organic sulfur which doesn't create acid water! (By comparison, northern WV & PA coal is 4% sulphur & 40% organic, and so does create the polluting acid water). Elkhorn Creek, as we know, runs fast & cold, & couple all that with the fact that trout like poo, and now you know why we have a creek teeming with 24"-30" trout, & a county chock-full of otters, beavers, wild turkey, ducks, birds, deer, bears, etc!
I also (finally) learned what poison ivy looks like, a Very Good Thing, as Martha Stewart would say, as for the last 8 years, (even after winding up in Bellevue Hospital in NYC from a case of it so bad that I looked like the Elephant Woman and had to get early release from a FEMA deployment), I thought it was something else. Live & learn... and then get Tony Wheeler to teach you what poison ivy looks like...

Another thing I learned is the secret of rapid weight loss: wear Neoprene chest waders in the broiling West Virginia sunshine. While I (smartly) got Dan lightweight waders, I bought chocolate brown neoprene ones for myself- a fisherwoman's fashion statement if ever there was one, if you're into looking like a brown sausage or Really into rubber- knowing "intellectually" that they might be a tad, uh, Warm. But unlike the lightweight women's waders, these had 5-star reviews from Real Fisherwomen, & that swayed me. "A tad warm" was an understatement, but if I ever get to go icefishing in Minnesota or back to Barrow, Alaska, I'll be Well prepared. Hiking up rocky Elkhorn Creek thigh-high in water in the spring sunshine I think I lost 10 lbs. inside a day- all sweat... Which I then put back on drinking Beach Grog, a Tony-&-Company concoction that he and his friends have shared with us & guests of the Inn. A smoothly, sweetly deceptive, & stunningly powerful ambrosia of rums, fresh fruit, and Coca Cola, Beach Grog constantly acquires new converts at the Inn, whacking them over the head with a velvet hammer. Trust me, kids: this stuff puts 'Long Island Ice Tea' to shame... Tony also shared his pack of jerky with us at lunch, (we love & respect folks who travel Prepared: jerky, brie, rum...), and as I am definitely a Jerky Girl & this was Truly Great Jerky, I was happily transported to my weird, gas-station-store version of foodie nirvanah... At the end of a truly super Saturday, we peeled off our waders (mine now known as "Elisse's Sauna Suit"), Chef Dan made us all a wonderful dinner of grilled salmon with a sweet-spicy fruit jerk sauce and (my fave) stir-fried Bok Choy over sweet potatoes in the Vietnamese style, and we sat outside yakking and laughing and drinking Beach Grog until the wee hours...

Elisse in her neoprene sauna suit, & Dapper Dan the Fly-Fishing Man, fishing in Elkhorn Creek...

Still life with Beach Grog Fixin's...

(Tony LOVES this photo, as my fashionably brown neoprene butt is coated with Elkhorn Crick mud, acquired by going down the 75-degree bank on my backside. Everyone has a "comfort level", and this is mine: when in doubt, sit. LOL  (We won't even Talk about my itchy arms from scaling the Other 75-degree river bank thru the jungle brush ("Was that poison ivy? No? Oh, good..."), fly-rod in hand... while Mr. T watched in comfort from the bridge). Do note the obsessive-compulsive look of Total Fly-Fishing Concentration...

Thank you, Tony! We had a total blast! We love having you as both a guest of the Inn and our good friend (you Truly crossed the line to "friend" after getting to see me both in a bathing suit (uck) & with my hair frizzed from the damp, looking like I'd stuck my finger in a light socket!) We hope & trust you and your wonderful fly-fishin' friends will come back to the Inn to enjoy both the fishing and our hospitality- & that someday soon you'll deign to go fishing with us again!!!

Summer's here! :-D

It's finally really and truly summer at the Elkhorn Inn- & it has even stopped raining! :-D

We've had a wonderful spring so far, with lots of great Railfan guests from places as far away as Florida & England (they love the "Pokey" in the UK, too!), & this weekend brought a return visit from our Favorite Trout Fishermen! (For them it was a "slow weekend on Elkhorn Creek"- only 30 some-odd trout between the 3 of them!) They came with the makings of their famous "Beach Grog", & after Chef Dan's dinner of Fresh Herb-Stuffed Cornish Game Hens, we all sat outside in the cool of the evening drinking Beach Grog, watching the trains, & yakking- a most pleasant way to spend then evening! Last week Dan and I made 3 1/2 quarts(!) of oregano pesto from the summer's first harvest (oregano being something that grows Really Well in southern WV...), and smeared on thin slices of toasted Italian bread, and served with chunks of Parmesan and a glass of dry, white wine, it makes a Fiiiiiiiiine appetizer!

The other great thing that's happened is that the Elkhorn Inn "officially" became a Destination Inn- we've had several guests who stated that came to stay with us ONLY because they'd heard about Chef Dan's wonderful dinners! I am SO proud of him I could bust! :-D

I haven't posted in awhile... basically because Duty (a.k.a. FEMA) Called, & I spent 3 weeks in Tallahassee, FL writing Community Relations reports for the flood disaster response operation. And while I spent three weeks basically eating one, endless plastic tray of Chicken Caesar Salad during and after 12 hour days on the computer, (followed by diligently running on the hotel treadmill in an effort to lose the $#!&%$! weight I put on 2 years ago on another FEMA disaster operation...), Dan was at the Elkhorn Inn taking care of guests and making them fabulous gourmet dinners... When I left for FL all the slacks I took with me were Dan's 32 inch pants :-P But I was a Very Good Little Dieter on this operation, (for once...), & by then end of my three weeks, (stress being good for me, apparently...), I was down to 130 lbs & wearing size 8 WOMEN'S slacks I'd bought @the Tallahassee Goodwill... & 130 lbs. is where I'm still stuck! :-( As you may recall from earlier posts, I am a hard-core devotee of thrift shops, & so instead of hitting the mall like a "normal" person might, I used the Garmin GPS Dan got me for Hanukkah to locate the nearest Goodwill to the office (right next to La Fiesta, a really nice little Mexican restaurant!), & overstuffed my suitcase with a complete summer wardrobe of Ann Taylor & Talbot's separates! I got to stay at the Hilton Gardens Inn in Tallahassee which has a great staff & was a Great place to come 'home' to each evening, and together we compiled a list of great restaurants in Tal I was hoping to get to (such as Chez Pierre) to do foodie "research" for Chef Dan, but I never had a chance! (Gotta go back...) :-( On our Sundays off, however, my coworkers & I did get to enjoy a bit of Florida (besides Goodwill!): we drove down to Panama City one day to sit for a few hours on the beach & eat some great oysters, & back in Tallahassee we found an excellent Cuban restaurant & went to Gill's Tavern several times for live music, whisky, & yummy crab cakes! Mother's Day happened while I was in Florida, and the Puppies (Tiger & Lady) got together with Dan & sent me (bless their little hearts), a gift box: a wonderful card, a lovely watch, some cute clothes, high heels, a carton of cigs, & a bottle of Bushmill's! Do I have good kids, or what???!!!

Who WAS the starlet who arrived @the Elkhorn Inn in a stretch???

One of the most wonderful things I got to do in Tallahassee was get to see a doctor who agreed to take a simple diagnostic skin test (unlike any of the doctors I go to in West Virginia who literally and categorically REFUSE to perform simple blood or skin tests), and thus learned I had yet another antibiotic-resistant staph infection. I mention this because given that I have had such infections in the past (and that a misdiagnosed e-coli skin infection became blood poisoning and nearly killed me in 2006), it continues to stun me that NOT ONE doctor I have seen in WV will agree to perform basic skin-swab or blood tests, so I literally have to leave the state (usually for Virginia, but in this case Florida) to have such tests done, and receive appropriate treatment. This, in a word, is NUTS. It's also criminal negligence.

While I was taking sulfa drugs, basking in the relatively dry warmth of a Tallahassee spring punctuated daily by the afternoon thundershower-from-hell, and listening to the locals regale me with stories of T's mind-numbing summer humidity, and my co-workers were fending off the rattlesnakes & water moccasins in Santa Rosa County, West Virginia was having yet another flood... and Federal Disaster Declaration. Dan pumped a few inches of water from our basement, but Landgraff, WV, where the Elkhorn Inn is, was fortunately spared; Logan and Man, however, were hard hit, and several hundred homes were destroyed; the picturesque waterfalls trickling down the mountain onto Route 52 turned into life-threatening torrents gushing across the highway, washing away roads, & creating mudslides! When I got home we had an Inn full of guests, but it was still raining like mad; the day of the Bramwell "Coal Baron Mansion" Open House we temporarily lost both power and water! But basically The minute I got back, rain or no rain, Dan & I had to finish planting the veggie garden, and we managed to get in a "field" of red and golden sweet corn, as well as tomatoes, the Tabasco pepper seeds I brought back from Louisiana, & all sorts of exotic peppers (I got tons of really cool seeds for things like Israeli Star of David Okra, Tree Tomatoes, Jamaican Hot Chocolate, Passilla Bajo, and Fezher Ozon Hungarian Paprika peppers from Trade Winds Fruit), onions, garlic, squash, pumpkins, melons, & herbs. I stuck all different kinds of basil & peppers in amongst the flowers (what is now trendily being referred to as "edible landscaping"!), sunflowers, beans, & peas everywhere I thought they might grow, & we planted two "bags" of potatoes, as well as red geraniums across the front of the Inn where we have the "spring tulip show" in April... Assuming we now get some serious sun, I have high hopes for "Kibbutz Elkhorn Inn" this summer!

The other fun thing we got to do once I got home was go to Gary Bowling's House Of Art in Bluefield for their Saturday Blues Night Out with C& S Railroad & Nat Reese! (There's a GREAT video of it on our Facebook page, so please become a "Facebook Fan" of the Elkhorn Inn! There's "railfan" videos & great trout fishing photos posted, too!) I can't Begin to tell you what a GREAT place Gary Bowling's House of Art is! We've waited 7 YEARS for a place like this, never really believing it'd ever exist- & here it is! Great music, great art, a fun place to eat, have a glass of wine or beer and hang out, and a truly great place to send our guests!

Father's Day (or as we call it at the Elkhorn Inn "DogFather's Day") was yesterday, and The Puppies got together and decided to get DogFather Dan a 3-month membership in wine.com's "Wines of the World"- what smart dogs! Yes, it was a rather extravagant present, but hey- he's our meal ticket! :-)

July 4th weekend we're having a Wing Ding at the Elkhorn Inn & Theatre in celebration of my "Big 5-0", with Alan Johnston & South 52 (and hopefully Alan's daughter, Stacy Grubb, who just cut her first album in Nashville!), playing again at our Theatre, and so at the moment we're trying to get Way too much done in Way too little time... I am also back to drinking 5 cups of Green Tea each day, still trying to diet off the last 15 lbs...

But the mountains are green, the orange and white lilies are in bloom, we're harvesting oregano out the wazoo, there's little bunches of grapes on our vines, the hummers are fighting at our feeders & the swallow babies are chirping from their nest on our porch, &, (to top it all), Dan made me Chicken Piccata the other night w/lemon, butter, capers, & white whine- & so all is right with My world! Trust all's right with your world, too! :-)