Text 17008, 80 rader
Skriven 2011-10-25 01:20:02 av Dale Shipp (1:261/1466.0)
Ärende: WV trains, day 2
========================
Day 2:
Breakfast at all of our hotels was a buffet of some sort.  At the
Marriott, it was excellent.  Fresh fruit included melons, pineapple,
blueberries.  There was a variety of cereals -- oatmeal, cheerios,
raisin bran and hyper colored kiddie stuff.  On the hot trays there were
scrambled eggs, grits, hash browns, bacon, sausage and even an omelet
station.  Also yogurt, toast, rolls and assorted pastries.  We gave it a
grade of A+.

After breakfast, the coach took us south west.  First stop was at the
Kanawha Falls, the site of an old power station.  Next we went to New
River Gorge where there was the worlds second largest single span
steel-arch bridge.  It is 1,700 feet long and 876 feet high.  A day or
two after we were there, they had the Annual Bridge Day event.  During
this event, people are allowed to bunge jump or sky dive off of the
bridge and a lot of people come to just watch.
http://www.officialbridgeday.com/new-river-gorge-bridge

For lunch, we stopped at a restaurant where they served salmon with dill
sauce, beef stroganoff, and vegetable lasagna.  We skipped the lasagna
and had samples of the other two entree items.  For desserts they had
tiramisu, lemon bars, a berry version of tiramisu and an apple crumble.
We didn't record the name of this restaurant, but gave them an A+ grade.
Especially notable was the salmon.  Unlike the usual steam tray salmon
at Chinese buffet offerings, this was fresh and cooked just right.

After lunch we went to the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine,
http://www.beckley.org/exhibition_coal_mine/index.html.  The above
ground museum was nice.  There was a trip down into the mine.  We've
been on much better such trips.  They had a rail car with center seating
so that you looked out one side or the other.  The rail car stopped a
couple of times and the driver/guide got out and talked about the mine
and equipment.  However, only half of the people could see him because
of the seating -- and it was also hard to understand him because of his
accent.  The mine was lit very well and the walls of the mine were
littered with sparkly Christmas decorations.  Both things made it very
unnatural to what a real mine would have been like -- not that tourists
would ever go down into a real mine with its 3-4 foot ceilings, no
lights, etc.

After the mine, we took a diversion north and visited a place called
Blue Smoke Salsa, https://www.bluesmokesalsa.com/.  Here we had a short
description and tour of the canning operation.  They also had samples to
taste and a free jar to take home.  The salsa is made with sweet onions
(such as valdalia).  It comes in a variety of heat levels.  To our
tastes, the medium was best.  They had at three more degrees of heat
above that and one below.  Except for the heat level, they all had about
the same taste.  The company started out about 20 years ago as a
basement operation and has expanded since to a moderately large small
town operation.  Their salsa has won awards and is available in the
local Kroger stores.

Finally, we were driven to the Tamarack Arts Center back in Beckley WV,
http://www.tamarackwv.com/.  This is a large circular building with a
lot of artist displays -- many at quite high prices.  There was one
artist who specialized in doing paintings on bird feathers of various
types.  Very unusual and unique -- but we resisted the temptation.  Our
dinner was also here.  They had a food line that was run by "Greenbriar
trained chefs".  We got a $15 food coupon each, and it was adequate.
Gail had a bronzed catfish with creole sauce.  Her other items were a
jambalaya, fried green tomatoes and key lime pie.  I got rainbow trout,
accompanied by green beans with mushrooms, kale and bread pudding for
dessert.  Her's was better, mine was a bit over cooked.  Other offerings
were hamburgers, pulled pork, chicken pot pie (saw one and it looked
very good).  We gave this a rating of A -- very good.

After dinner, we went into an auditorium for what was supposed to be an
appalachian story teller.  The guy talked for about an hour about how
his son became a professional mascot for sports teams -- hardly related
to appalachian culture.

Finally, after a long day we were driven to our hotel for the second
night, Country Inn & Suites in Beckley, WV.  Decent place.  


... Shipwrecked on Hesperus in Columbia, Maryland. 00:36:32, 25 Oct 2011
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