New York City

Myself and Howie, who is a friend of mine, went to NYC for the day. I always wanted to see NYC around Christmas time. It was definitely cold but we still had a great time. We saw Rockefeller Center and the Christmas tree there, Ground Zero, Macy's all 'done up' for Christmas, Wall Street and the Stock Exchange, Times Square, and ate at an upscale sushi restaurant called Sushi Zen. I had been to NYC a couple of times before this trip and had done all of the standard things like the Statue of Liberty and go up in the WTC...when it was still there.
We got around the city easily enough.. we only had one error on the subway. It was good to visit the Big Apple again!

WV & The Gauley

Dad and I went deep into the southern heart of WV around Summersville and Fayetteville. We spent some time at the farm before going to Summersville to raft on the Class 5 rapids on the Gauley River. We also did some hiking the day before. What a time that was.. Dad left it up to me to pick the destination. I chose the old abandoned Kaymoor coal mine because it seemed super interesting. We started at Kaymoor Top and hiked down into the Gorge to Kaymoor Bottom. Over a 1,000 foot decent in about a mile. We no sooner left the parking lot when it started to rain--hard. We had donned our synthetic wicking layers so we decided to press on because we had A LOT of time to burn before we could check into the hostel (that I also picked out). Once at the bottom, the old coal car rails, coke ovens, building structures, and conveyor belt to transport the coal were eerily present in the increasingly low hanging fog. The New River was swiftly moving along in the distance.

Hiking up out of the Gorge was a challenge-- at least I made it one. It was over 800 steps of stairs to get back up the trail that switchbacked the rest of the way up the mountain to the parking lot. I went all 800+ stairs AND continued to hike up the switchbacks to the parking lot WITHOUT stopping! Fuck yes! I was a hot mess once back to the car though.. my synthetic shirt was all wicked out and the rain was starting to penetrate. Oh well, still a fun time! :)