West Virginia Attitude Adjustment

I knew I just needed to get away from that dang river

and I'd get my head on straight.

I am so grateful to have access (through my friend) to a place where I know I'll find arrowheads.  How many people can say that?

This was my 5th annual visit

and I got to borrow some groovy rubber boots for slogging through muddy fields.

It was mesmerizing to glimpse my Austin-Power-styled feet as I scanned the ground for arrowheads.

The boots brought me luck (or at least dry comfort) because I had a very productive visit.

I'm also gaining experience in spotting tiny worked edges

 and points that are hiding out under dirt clods.

The above point is one of the best I've found on my visits.

It's better after a rain because the darker points contrast better with the soil.

I went a month earlier this year which made a big difference in the temperature.  The days were beautiful but at times there was a freezing wind that required additional protection for my schnoz.

I used an app to map our path and found that we were walking about 5 miles a day through rough fields.  That explains why something so slow and calm is so exhausting!

We might be in hillbilly country but we travel with homemade quinoa tabouleh and local IPA's.

I have my limits when roughing it.

The last point I found was so exciting:

Even a missing corner can't dim my enthusiasm for this beauty.

Here's my haul for 2018.

But did you think I wasn't going to look for fossils?

Wrong!

I went back to my little hillside for some Devonian brachiopod love (legal in West Virginia).  

See them piling up behind me?  

Right under the local IPA.

I've decided, at the age of 53, that I need to document my handstands because I never know when it will be the last.  Here's my first West Virginia handstand.  I was cold, tired, and buzzed, 

but it was a passable attempt.

I love this spot because the matrix is incredibly soft.  It doesn't split in nice plains but the hammering is so easy, I won't complain.

Lots of tentaculite impressions and even some fossil remains.  

I didn't get any trilobite love this time.  

Just one impression.  

I know they're in there! Maybe next year.

A nice collection for no more than 2 hours on the hill

 and I really only worked one small section of rock.

This photo is called,

"Get ready, TSA! Here I come!"

I find it smooths the way if I announce from the get go that I have a suitcase full of rocks.

The Charlottesville, Virginia airport is very small so it's not much of a hassle to unpack and repack everything for the hand check.  In fact, I was the only person to be seen at security.  

The West Virginia trip cleared my mind and got me ready to head back to the river.

I'm not saying I won't keep bitching and moaning if I don't find stuff, though.

For your further reading pleasure...

I was snuggled under a quilt in West Virginia and noticed this fabric tag sewn to the underside.

I grabbed my phone and looked up all the info, discovering that I was sleeping under a quilt probably made in the 1800's.  I immediately considered carefully folding it up and looking for a modern, machine washable blanket but these treasures were always meant to be used, a practical use for leftover fabric scraps in the time before WalMart and disposable clothing, bringing beauty to the home and comfort to its inhabitants.  

Here's the intro on the West Virginia Heritage Quilt Search site.  Check it out for a look into our nation's past.

<<Tucked away in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, preserved for generations, handmade bed quilts are windows into the past. In 1983, three West Virginia county extension agents discussed the need to locate and document their state's historic quilts. In 1992, West Virginia Heritage Quilt Search held documentation days throughout the state to collect and preserve the valuable information stitched into these quilts.

The search focused on documenting quilts made in West Virginia before 1940, which marked the end of a fertile period in American quilt history and the beginning of a decline in quiltmaking that would continue until the 1970s. Ultimately, the search registered more than 4,000 quilts.
This effort has culminated in West Virginia Quilts and Quiltmakers: Echoes from the Hills, published by Ohio University Press on November 1, 2000, in association with the West Virginia Heritage Quilt Search, Inc. The book includes 159 color photographs of selected quilts, with maps showing where they were made, a database analysis of the statewide survey, and the oral histories of descendants of quiltmakers.>>