I had a big day of exploring on Saturday, and I think some of it may count as research for my books.

The main event was Mill Day at a nearby preserved historic farm. They were going to be running their restored 18th century water-powered mill, and I was very excited about this. I’ve been fascinated by water-powered mills since I was a little kid. We had a print of a water mill — I think it was even in my bedroom at one point — and there was something about it that made me want to crawl into that picture. There might also have been a Captain Kangaroo episode about a mill (I think a lot of my lifelong interests can be traced back to either Captain Kangaroo or Mister Rogers). I saw one water wheel on a trip to England, but it wasn’t a functioning mill. Otherwise, I’d never seen one before.

So, when I got to this farm after a pleasant country drive and the first thing I saw when I got out of the car was the water wheel turning, I got way too excited. I was practically shaking with glee to watch the water wheel turn. Then I got to go inside and see the millstone turning and the meal coming out. It’s a pretty noisy operation, which was a detail I need for potential scenes in the Rydding Village books, in case we visit the mill during working hours. This place also had a nature trail along the mill pond, which I walked, and some other demonstrations that were mostly for kids, but they also let me work the water pump.

My original plan had been to drive home via the Blue Ridge Parkway, but the whole parkway is closed for a damage survey after Hurricane Helene. I don’t think our end, the very northern part, was damaged all that badly, but they got hit a lot worse over there than we did here, so there might have been some trees down. I checked on the map for other things I could do on the way home, and it turned out that there was another mill nearby, and this one has been in continuous commercial operation since 1750. They still mill different kinds of flour and corn there. So I drove over to that mill. You can go around inside it and even go out onto a walkway that overlooks the water wheel. You can buy flour and meal in the shop there. I chatted a while with the miller and got some buckwheat pancake mix and some corn meal (both ended up being really good).

The next stop was the Enchanted Mushroom Festival in a village just down the road from where I live. They had some interesting educational displays about fungi and mushrooms, but otherwise it was the same festival vendors you see at all the local events, so I didn’t stay too long there.

But I realized that once I was in that village, I was pretty close to the mountains to the west of my town that I haven’t visited before (the ones I can kind of see from one corner of my back yard), so I drove in that direction. I saw a sign for a recreational area in the George Washington National Forest and turned off down a narrow road up into the mountains, where I found this small lake/large pond with a picnic area nearby. I’d brought some hot tea and cookies and had my afternoon tea in the picnic area, then walked around a bit. There’s a hiking trail there, but I hadn’t brought hiking boots and it was pretty rugged, so I decided to do that another day. That spot is only half an hour from my house.

Ironically, that area was where I saw the true enchanted mushrooms. These were right out of a storybook. Apparently, mushroom foraging is big around here and the people putting on the mushroom festival are professionals at that, teaching classes. I’m wary enough to stick to eating what I buy in stores, but I now know to look for interesting mushrooms when walking in the woods.

It was on the way back that I realized how far into the mountains I’d gone because I had mountains ahead of me. I guess the road goes up gradually in elevation but also through a pass so I didn’t realize I’d gone through mountains on the way to that lake. The mountains are smaller than I thought, so they’re closer than I realized. I think I prefer these ancient, sort of worn-down mountains covered in trees to the more rugged, snow-capped mountains like the Rockies and the Alps. The Appalachians are so old that the mountains in Ireland, Scotland, and Norway are all part of the same range because the range was formed before the continents split apart. Maybe that’s why I feel so at home here. My heritage is Scottish, Irish, and Norwegian, so I’m living in the same mountain range that’s in my ancestral lands.

Supposedly, this weekend will be peak fall color in West Virginia, so I may head over there. I might take Friday off and go then so that it will be less crowded, then work on Saturday.