In this part, Jason and Shavonda spend their vacation in West Virginia with Jason's family, centered around Grandma's birthday party and a trip to see the legendary wild ponies on Mount Rogers.
The morning after the reunion, I awoke in our tent, snuggled against Shavonda's naked body. I was hard, morning wood with the added stimulation of being nestled in between her ass cheeks. I let my hand roam her still sleeping body, giving her booty a playful squeeze just to feel her press back into me. I continued to let my hands roam, stimulating her sensitive spots as she slowly awakened. "Hey, baby," she mumbled. I kissed the base of her neck as I moved my hand between her legs.
Suddenly, the tent flap was pulled back, letting in the bright sunlit morning. "Wake up you two!" Kenny yelled, with Edie right behind him. Shavonda's reaction was swift and instinctive. She quickly rolled over onto her belly, almost breaking my wrist in the process. And leaving my flagpole, which I'd been rubbing against her ass, on full display.
"Ohhh my gawd," Edie said slowly, as Kenny shook in silent laughter. "Von you told me he big but you never said he pornstar big. How you do it? Don't it hurt?"
I quickly looked around for my underwear, lying where we'd tossed it last night, and covered myself up. I handed Shavonda her bra and panties, hissing at Kenny, "I'ma git you real good. You just wait." Unable to control himself, he doubled over in laughter.
Shavonda, to her credit, was unfazed. She continued to lay there, naked on her stomach, her private parts out of view. Kenny stopped laughing long enough to sputter, "You do look like the lady in the painting." He was referring to the nude African queen painting that hung in our bedroom, since before I'd first met Shavonda. It did look like a lighter skinned version of my own queen.
"Do you two mind if we have a moment to get ourselves together?" Shavonda said. "We'll meet you in the kitchen."
After they left, we quickly found some appropriate clothing from our duffel bag, and put our boots on. Shavonda wore a pair of blue denim shorts and a white t shirt, I put on black jeans and a railroad themed t shirt we'd bought the week before at the train show. Fully dressed, we walked into the house holding hands. Mom, James, Kenny and Edie were at the kitchen table, drinking coffee. But Shavonda and I didn't need stimulation. We were wide awake after what Kenny had done.
"I don't know if y'all heard it or not, but something really heavy started up the mountain about a half hour ago." Kenny said. "If we leave now, we'll beat him to the lower horseshoe."
"You have TWO horseshoes?" James asked. "My railroad only has one." He was referring to the famous Horseshoe Curve outside Altoona, PA.
"Yes, there are two," I explained. "The lower one is at the bottom of the climb, the second one is about halfway to the top. You'll like that one better. About half of the upper horseshoe is on a bridge about a hundred feet high. We'll show you on the way back."
We all piled in the Jeep, and headed off over the mountain. Arriving at the lower horseshoe a little after 7:30, we parked next to the railroad overpass in the middle of the curve and quickly made the climb up to the tracks. Kenny had his ham radio set for the railroad frequency, and soon it came to life.
"Engine 9820 to Dispatcher, we're coming by Kimball now. What's the plan?"
"Straight through at Norcross. Cut off your helper on the main west of Dolomite. Helper did you copy?"
"Roger that," the helper engineer replied. "Cut off west of Dolomite. Are we going into the island?"
"Yes, once you've cut away you have permission to reverse direction into the island track. Pull up far enough that I can get another helper in behind you."
Cool. We had beaten the westbound here, but not by much. There wasn't enough time to walk in to Norcross so we'd have to find a place to get off the tracks. The sound of Dynamic brakes, and wheels squealing around the sharp turns was growing louder, but the train was not yet in sight. Gradually, though, I became aware of a far more ominous growl off to the west. We had an eastbound train coming, and he wasn't far off. Our group had made it to the gooseneck S curve just below the horseshoe, so I led them up the hillside above the tracks to safely await the two trains.
I had my camera out, and as I turned around I was amazed at the sight I saw. Before us lay the horseshoe curve in all its glory, turning the railroad back on itself in a desperate effort to gain precious elevation. According to the map, the line continued back to the New River, just above Norcross, then clung to the side of the river bluffs for a couple of miles, climbing all the while as the river gently curved to the east. All of this was out of our view. But a short tunnel through the bluff brought the line back into our valley a half mile or so below the horseshoe, clinging desperately to the mountainside as it passed by the horseshoe curve below. This meander had gained the line about two hundred feet in elevation, and the hillside below the upper line was open pasture. Butt Mountain, at over 4000 feet in elevation, towered 2500 feet above the valley where we were. It was an impressive scene, but unfortunately backlit. I decided to take pictures anyway.
The eastbound train turned out to be the morning zigzag Scott had told us about, grinding past as it quickly lost speed on the upgrade. As it swung around the horseshoe, exhaust billowing into the morning air, the westbound train appeared on the mountainside far above. It was a loaded iron ore train, and with the dynamics not having enough braking power to adequately control the heavy train they'd made a heavy airbrake application as well. Brake shoe smoke wisped off the wheels of the cars as they wound their way high on the mountainside. With the sun backlighting everything, it was a very dramatic scene that would become one of my favorite photos.
After the trains had passed through the scene, we stayed put until the ore train squealed around the horseshoe and passed us. It had come into the curve with dynamic brakes screaming, like a giant vacuum cleaner, then as the train hit the flatter grade through the curve, the engineer backed off on the dynamics and coasted by us. Undoubtedly, the train crew was breathing a sigh of relief. A mile from the bottom, they were through the last sharp curve and could let the train roll now.
We watched as the zigzag coal train clawed its way along the upper track, disappearing around the side of the mountain. Returning to the tracks, we continued our hike as the sound of the eastbound coal train gradually faded into the distance.
In a short time, we'd reached the end of the river bridge. The signals at Norcross shone in the distance, a two-headed signal on a pole for each track. Both showed a red over red indication, which meant any trains on those tracks had to stop. The bridge itself consisted of a massive through truss over most of the river itself, with the approaches to the main span being relatively short girders with the track laid on top. The whole bridge curved gently off to the right, while the river and other railroad curved gently to the left. After the two lines crossed, they paralleled the river and each other in a sweeping curve to the left.
We hadn't been there very long when we heard the whine of an approaching train winding its way down the mountain in the distance. Soon, we heard him on the radio. "WC3 to Dispatcher. Coming by Kimball. What you got planned for us?"
"Wc3, you'll cut away your helper west of Dolomite. You might want to take it easy into Norcross, the Norfolk's got the circuit."
"What does that mean, Norfolk's got the circuit?" Shavonda asked. She was obviously as intrigued by the location as James, Kenny and I were.
"Remember when we figured out the first train to approach the crossing gets the signal? Evidently, there's one coming on the other railroad," Kenny said. Sure enough, in a couple minutes we could hear the other train approaching. It soon came into view, racing along the far bank of the river. We watched as it clattered across the crossing, an endless string of empty coal cars pulled by two diesel locomotives. At the same time, high on the hillside WC3 curved around the end of the bluffs and headed away from us toward the lower horseshoe. With the coal train clear of the crossing, the circuits did their magic, and at the far end of the bridge, the right signal went from double red to Green over red. WC3 now had the right of way.
We could hear the squeal of the wheels as the train draped itself around the horseshoe curve over a mile away, and headed towards us once more. Four locomotives whined into view, followed by a motley assortment of rusty freight cars that rumbled across the bridge. The signal dropped back to double red as the locomotives passed it, and the train continued on. Soon, as Scott had described the train to us, the string of empty tanker cars that brought up the rear rolled past, looking like a huge snake, followed by the two helper locomotives idling along on the rear. Having safely brought the train over the mountain, they were no longer needed, and their engineer used just enough throttle to keep the slack in the couplings bunched in the train.
We had just observed the automatic interlocking doing what it was designed to do: safely keep the trains out of each other's way. As quiet once again descended on the peaceful river valley, we waited for a while to see if anything else was nearby. Shavonda had taken her binoculars from our day pack, and as we ate the chicken Mom had made for our breakfast, she scanned the trees looking for the birds whose songs added to the peaceful atmosphere. All too soon, somebody looked at their watch, and, seeing it was now almost ten we reluctantly started the hike back to the Liberty. After all, we didn't want to be late for Grandma's party.
On the way back, as we'd promised James, we took a short detour to the upper Horseshoe with its towering trestle curving across the narrow valley. But the railroad had fallen silent, and we could wait no more.
It was almost noon when we made it back to the farmhouse. Since we'd slept in, Neither Shavonda nor I had bathed, so we snuck off to the shower together. We reveled in the feel of our soapy hands on the other's body. But somehow, we managed to keep it clean. The other family members were starting to arrive, and though our reputation as freaks was well known we didn't want to give the family another story to tell. Shavonda had put her hair in a shower cap, and I was amazed how well her braids had survived.
We quickly dried off and I lotioned her in my old room, where Shaunice had spent the night. I'd grabbed our duffel bag from the tent before we showered, and Shavonda put on a sundress she'd brought, black with multicolored rectangles of blue, red, green and yellow. The vibrant colors looked good against her dark skin. I put on a fresh pair of jeans, and a nice white golf shirt. Together we padded barefoot downstairs to join the family. Neither of us felt the need to wear shoes around the farmhouse.
Mom, Althea and Shaunice were out on the back porch talking with Sally, who'd just arrived with her husband Bob. Dad and James were setting up a canopy over the picnic table in the backyard. I went to assist them while my goddess joined the other ladies, sipping Kool-Aid and watching the men struggle with the canopy. Kenny and Edie had disappeared who knows where, but I hoped he was enjoying his queen as much as I enjoyed mine.
