West Virginia: Bears, Fat Cats, and Gardens

At the end of summer, my family decided to get out of hot, hot Austin and visit pleasant, wooded West Virginia. West Virginia is where my Aunt Shelly and Larry live. Visiting Aunt Shelly is a unique experience because the house is in such a beautiful and secluded location.

Geezer's Roost

But just because it's a secluded house, doesn't mean it's quiet! The whole house was alive with many, many dogs. In fact, this vacation was as much Honey Bear's vacation as it was ours.

Honey Bear

Including Honey Bear, there were six dogs running around the house. My favorite dog after Honey Bear was Little Bear, the original bear.

Little Bear

Besides Little Bear and Honey Bear, there are two more "Bears." One of them is Teddy Bear, who is a bit shy but joins in on the fun when the Bears go romping.

Teddy Bear

The last Bear is Smokey Bear. Smokey Bear is the "Show Dog" since she's got shorter legs and is more rounded. Smokey loves tagging along with Little Bear on all her adventures.

Smokey Bear

Next up is Lucy. Lucy is not part of the Bear family. In fact, she looks a lot more like a deer.

Lucy

The most recent addition to the dogs is Henry, who is Larry's dog. Henry is the only male dog of the bunch, so Larry often made jokes with Henry about how hard it was to be surrounded by females.

Henry

Larry is the dog master. He's the hand that feeds, and also the man who drove the truck out back to walk the dogs.

Larry the bear master

But let's not forget Aunt Shelly.

Aunt Shelly and her mushroom

My whole family loved it here in West Virginia. It was very relaxing and beautiful.

Nicholas and Honey Bear resting near the gardens

In addition, we had a great time with Little Bear, who I consider to be the happiest dog of the bunch.

Little Bear on the front porch

Little Bear was just endlessly entertaining, and you could tell that she was having a good time.

Little Bear rests in the funniest ways

I think Honey Bear could tell that Little Bear was the cool dog to hang around with. They often were around each other, and they both enjoyed going outside often.

Aunt Shelly's Garden

I can't talk about West Virginia without mentioning how fun it was to pick fruit. This time around, blueberries and apples were in season, and they were delicious. There's nothing like hand-picking your own batch of blueberries.

Blueberry Huntin'

Apple harvesting was something new for me. It is a bit more exciting than picking blueberries because you essentially poke the apples until they fall, and when they fall, they fall fast. You have to be careful not to let them hit  you.

Can you see the falling apple?

We had fun riding in the back of the truck going from tree to tree. Larry showed us a great technique of setting up lawn chairs in the back of the truck. The only problem is that when the truck went up steep hills, the chairs slid around the truck bed. Nick nearly crushed me when his lawn chair started sliding towards me (I was sitting on the truck bed itself).

Truck bed riding in style

The truck was also an easy way to get down to the beautiful lake on Aunt Shelly's property.

Beautiful West Virginia Pond

All the bears loved getting in the water and swimming, except for our Honey Bear. It was pretty funny when Aunt Shelly tried to coax her into swimming with food. Honey bear wasn't biting. 

Come on Honey bear, get in the water...

Aunt Shelly told us that she eventually manged to get Honey bear into the water after several days of teasing her with food, but I didn't get to capture it. Nevertheless, it was a pretty amazing accomplishment, considering how scared Honey Bear is of water.

Another accomplishment was that Nicholas managed to catch a fish.

Nick caught a fish!

Unfortunately, he could not remove the hook in time, so when the fish was thrown back in the water, it simply floated on the top. That's when Little Bear decided that fish was hers.

Staredown

Gotcha!

After Nick finished fishing we got a fire started so that we could eat dinner. As you can see, Nick's the better boy scout.

Fire makin'

We used the fire to cook corn, potatoes, and delicious toasted marshmallows. I love taking my time to cook a marshmallow properly.

I love a good marshmallow roast

After that, we were treated with one of the best dinners I've had. We had fresh steak, corn, potatoes, and even a Hawaiian bread roll. Just seeing it makes my mouth water.

Delicious steak dinner

But my favorite West Virginia treat was going motorcycling with the Honda Fat Cats. Dad scratched his leg up once while riding, but fortunately he healed quickly enough to do one really long, fun ride with me on our last day there.

These bikes are out of control!

Bryan on a Fat Cat 

I don't remember quite how to get there, but we found a dirt path that lead to a gravel road. On the gravel road were some of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen. The gravel was also a really great place to speed up on the Fat Cats. I couldn't capture some of the scenic views, but I did manage to snap one good picture of the gravel road.

On the road again...

Eventually if you follow the road long enough you find a beautiful West Virginia landscape.

Sweet West Virginia Air

So that was our West Virginia Trip. This was the last vacationing spot I managed to visit before starting school again. That means it might be a while until my next post.

West Virginia will always have a special place in my heart. It is the most beautiful and relaxing place to take a break, and I can't wait to come back again. So if you ever wonder to yourself if you should visit Aunt Shelly or Larry, let me tell you, the answer is yes!