New River Gorge, WV

Coming home to fresh tomatoes, squash, beans, and leeks was wonderful, but that's another post.

A impressive stop on the way home (to Asheville) from Buffalo was the New River Gorge National Park.

One of the oldest, if not the oldest, rivers in North America, the New River runs from Boone, NC west through West Virginia for some hundreds of miles before merging with another river and watershed.

A 'new' bridge over the Gorge (finished in 1977) is impressive.

A wonderful native species planting in front of the Canyon Rim Visitor Center

The gorge is spectacular, and belies its coal-mining past (there were rich veins of clean-burning coal that supported the region through the 1960's.)  The slopes are now cloaked with green forest, reflecting the speed at which the forest recovers in the Southern Appalachians, when seed sources are available.

Now the river attracts rafters drawn to the whitewater rapids and is a region that interests both adventure tourists and folks like me who were just dropping by.

Buffalo food: a postscript

The lovely gardens that we saw and the inspirational participation in Buffalo's Garden Walk (I keep thinking about the 350+ gardeners that have volunteered their gardens to be visited -- wow) weren't the only outstanding aspects of Buffalo.

We weren't able eat at that many restaurants (we were a big group), but our catered dinners at the 20th Century Club were delicious, and the lunch at Rue Franklin was  outstanding. 

Normally only open for dinner, Rue Franklin served up an amazing lunch.  The shrimp salad that many of us had was not only a work of art (I need Bonnie's photo to document that), but each bite was deliciously different.

Rue Franklin window view with orchid

There were grilled shrimp, red-roasted potato wedges, onions, and haricots verte (woo-hoo, I was going to write green beans, but they were WAY better than 'regular' green beans) on a delicious bed of salad greens dressed with someting delightful.

It was a long way from my college town in Upstate SC.