Homer Hickam at the Elkhorn Inn! "Rocket Boys" ROCK!

On Friday evening, Oct. 1st, the night before the "October Sky" Festival in Coalwood, West Virginia with Homer Hickam and the other "Rocket Boys" of book and movie fame, Homer & Linda Hickam, and Randy Stripling (the actor who played Leon Bolden in the movie "October Sky"), came by the Elkhorn Inn & Thrilled our guests! It is always a joy when they come by the Inn, and Homer was kind enough to sign his many books that we have in the Elkhorn Inn's Gift Shop: http://store.elkhorninnwv.com - including some rare First Editions!

 

Homer Hickam, Dan Clark, & Elkhorn Inn Guests




Dan Clark & Randy Stripling





Elisse & Dan Clark, Randy Stripling, Linda & Homer Hickam



Homer Hickam & Elkhorn Inn Guests



The Elkhorn Inn & Theatre has recently had some truly wonderful media coverage, including

Rail cuisine served up in Landgraff by Wilson Butt in the Bluefield Daily Telegraph,

a wonderful 2-page, full-color article in the October issue of WV Living Magazine: http://wvlivingmagazine.com/current.htm 

and a glorious, 5-page full-color feature by Bruce Ingram, in WV South Magazine:

 

Our other fun this week came with festooning the Inn for fall, with my giant table centerpiece of pumpkins, gourds, & cattails from our ATV trips, our little pumpkin plates & bowls and leaf place mats, and festive Halloween tinsel hanging from the dining room chandelier!

 The piesta de resistance, however, was "Decor Dan's"  Annual Inflating of Elisse's Fall Decorations, which enable me to refer to myself as THE "Appalachian Martha Stewart of Inflatable Decor"! Dan, with much gnashing of teeth and his trusty patch kit & drill by his side, managed to get them all blown up, screwed down, & lit up large, and so even when all the pretty leaves are gone, the Elkhorn Inn will still have glow-in-the-dark "curb appeal"!  

Part of the Autumn Decor at the Elkhorn Inn...

Yes, I may finally have gone a little over the top in the inflatable decor department, but eBay ever has a wealth of inflatables at my disposable, many from people downsizing their collections, and this season I was lured by a bevy of inflatables that were truly irresistible: Our new Hunting Snowman, stacks of pumpkins, & Jack O'Lantern Ghosts, to add to our tractor-riding scarecrow & ghoul archway! And just you wait 'til December! ;-)


I then took what I think is THE cutest pet photo, bar none:
"Pitty & Kitty, Asleep In Their Box":

Have a happy, festive, leaf-peeping fall!



Oy! (But I can't complain- I'd be an idiot)...

With the good, comes the bad, right?
We've had a wonderful fall at the Inn. If I complained about Anything I'd be a criminally stupid idiot. Homer & Linda Hickam stopped by the Elkhorn Inn the night before the Coalwood October Sky Festival and Totally thrilled our guests (and us)! Homer signed books, posed for photos with our guests (and me!), and was, as we say in Yiddish, a Total Mensch! :-) He is really As Good As It Gets, and so is Linda, for it was she who informed us that some of Homer's books that we had in our Gift Shop were First Editions and REALLY special! :-) (Our only "Rocket Boys" Signed First Edition is on eBay right now... and there's a bid, so it will definitely sell to one Really Happy Person! Check it out! http://shop.ebay.com/290367934084 )
Our many wonderful Railfan guests have been enjoying the Inn, leaf-peeping, and all our wonderful Pocahontas trains, and the Inn's great, new ATCS Monitor and Scanner, shooting backup pix & videos off our balcony & patio... and we've had guests from as far away as Alaska & MN enjoying the Inn... (Our AK guest gifted us with a jar of her home-made "half-smoke" spicy salmon, which was like Manna from heaven for Dan & I!)
Our hand-crafted WV coal gifts, McDowell County jams & jellies, coal candy, and vintage American Quilts have been flying off the shelves for Hanukkah and Christmas gifts, proving that REALLY affordable- read: cheap!- gifts, that are unique, fun, "green", and actually made by Real People, right HERE, still have some allure! :-D
On the Sweepstakes Front, the Sweeps Queen of Landgraff, WV won a couple of Real Goodies, including eye glasses (she Badly needs) from http://www.EyeBuyDirect.com, a fairly fabulous pearl necklace, beauty products, and two hog hunting holidays (!) in Texas...
But our love-dog, our Tiger, still hasn't come home, and both Dan & I are broken-hearted and not sleeping- for the last month. We've almost lost hope of ever getting him back, but I just Can't lose total hope. Tiger was my love-dog, my puppy, my all-time-best cuddle-dog, my "Mr. Lickey", and my laughter... and I just Can't bear to lose hope that by some miracle he'll come home safe...
In the last week, Lady & Bear-Puppy literally chewed through windows- twice- & took off, scaring both Dan & I to pieces. Dan literally had to rebuild a 1922 window as a result... Since they Never pulled this kind of thing before, I assume it's been desperate attempts by Lady to find Tiger- her Puppy-Hubby- but they came home safe, thank G-d. Wet, shivering-cold, & exhausted- but safe... last night, when we had guests at the Inn. tey literally banged into the side door to let us know they were home! Lady, Bear, & Kitty are now all cuddled up together in their big box, and all is well, but we miss our Tiger SO bad...