After our August camping trip, Edie and I kept in touch. I missed being with her, and though we talked on the phone just about every evening, it just wasn't the same.
Work was steady. We were in the middle of a multi year project of replacing smaller bridges with precast concrete box culverts, primarily in Highland and Bath counties. This was a pretty involved project, with us having to survey a temporary roadway around the work site, then when the roadway was in service, the old bridge had to be demolished. We then surveyed the exact location where the culvert would be dropped, then the location of the wing walls that acted to funnel the water through the culvert. Often this required some stream relocation and we surveyed that as well. For these last two, we did so under the direction of a geologist as well as the project engineer. The area was underlaid with rock of varying hardness, tilted at all kinds of crazy angles. There was shale, which crumbled easily, some limestone, which would dissolve over time from the water, and quartzite, which was hard and stable. Often, core samples had to be taken and pilings driven, and we surveyed the location of those too.
When core samples were drilled, all surveying work at that site halted while they were analyzed. They would determine how deep pilings had to be driven, or the exact location of the culvert. Erosion control was of primary importance. Though the area was one of the driest parts of Virginia, it was prone to occasional heavy downpours in the summer, and very heavy snowfall in the winter, all due to the elevation of the mountain ridges. Highland county was the headwaters of several major rivers, and when it rained torrents up there, everything downstream would flood.
This was one of the reasons for the box culvert design. They were cast as a single piece and trucked to the site. With the older style beam bridges, erosion would sometimes undercut or shift the bridge abutments and supports, causing the structure to be unusable. The hope was that by using one-piece units, this would be minimized. The culverts were also cheaper to replace, being of standard sizes.
We were often working two or three sites at the same time. When our work was suspended on one site, say while the cores were analyzed, we'd shift work to another nearby site.
I took pictures of the sites to send to Edie. She had fallen in love with the mountains, and I encouraged her interest in my world. She loved one job site in particular. The roadway passed just above a small waterfall, about 8 feet high. This was a problem child for the geologists and engineers, because of concerns about the stability of the roadway due to its proximity to the waterfall. Even though the underlying bedrock was quartzite and thus solid, they were concerned about backward erosion of the waterfall that would eventually put it right under the culvert. Though that probably wouldn't occur for thousands of years, they were taking no chances, and after drilling what seemed like a hundred cores, they opted to reconstruct the roadway with a retaining wall supported by steel beam pilings driven deep into the bedrock. Afterward, the area would be backfilled around the retaining wall to the original contours. Because of the location deep in a mountain gorge, we could not survey a temporary roadway around the site, and the road had to be closed for a couple of months while the work was done.
Edie fell in love with the photos of the site. It was then I discovered her love of waterfalls, and I promised her that we'd look for them the next time we were together.
The rest of the summer Calvin had booked us weekend gigs, and we played places like Beckley and Pulaski. As luck would have it, Labor Day weekend he'd booked us in Thomas, WV opening for another folk band. If Elkins was convenient for Edie to meet up with me, Thomas was even more so. It lay near the Fairfax Stone, where West Virginia wrapped around the western end of Maryland. Edie would be able to drive to it in a little over two hours. Excitedly, I called her to tell her the news.
"Hey baby," she purred. "I miss you."
"Miss you too," I replied. "What're you doing Labor Day weekend?"
"Water?" she laughed.
"What are you doing that weekend," I growled in mock anger. "You know what I'm trying to say."
"Yeah," she laughed. "I should be used to the way all talk down there by now. Actually, I was hoping to spend the weekend with you. What's up?"
"Calvin has us booked for two shows up your way. Want to spend the weekend looking for waterfalls?"
The squeal of delight on the phone was my answer. We excitedly made plans, and I booked us a cabin in the nearby Blackwater Falls state park.
The two weeks until the trip passed slowly. When I was not working or talking to Edie, I busied myself working on the small train layout in my apartment. My latest project was a small-town train station based on one not too far from where I lived. Even though passenger trains were long gone, it had survived after the local maintenance crews took it over for their base. They had seen me taking photos of the exterior and were kind enough to let me see the inside as well.
One of the features I liked was the bay window where the old telegraph operator sat back in the day, along with a long disused semaphore signal that he had controlled. The signal, actually two, one for each direction, conveyed no authority for train movements like a regular signal. Instead, it was a relic of a bygone era when trains moved under written orders from the dispatcher, hooped up to trains as they passed by. The train orders would tell them where they were going to meet opposing trains on the single track, and which one would use the siding to get out of the way. The signal was used to indicate to the approaching trains whether the telegrapher had orders for them.
My model was coming along nicely. I'd built what I could out of basswood and used detail parts I got online for the window frames and signals. Overall, I was proud of the way it turned out.
On the big day, I left straight from work, after giving Edie directions to the park. I checked in to the cabin, then went to the lodge to meet Edie. She arrived shortly before dark, greeting me with a big hug. "God, I missed you," she said. She smelled of coconut oil and shea butter and seemed fresh even though she'd worked all day then drove almost 3 hours to meet me.
"Do you like my hair?" she asked. "I had it done yesterday. And I did like it. She's had it cut in a short, Halle Berry style that fit her perfectly.
She followed me back to the cabin in her car. After helping her with her bags, we went off in search of firewood. Edie was in awe of the cabin, which featured a huge stone fireplace in the main room, with bunk beds in two smaller rooms at the rear of the structure. A stove and refrigerator along with a small table and 4 chairs completed to furnishings.
