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Do you like food … I mean, REALLY like food? Do you love different tastes, aromas, and presentations of food? Do you search for the unique, independent places to eat? Do you yearn to take a peek at what the chef is doing in the kitchen? Is dining a whole experience for you; a mixture of the sights and sounds of food, people, culture, and atmosphere? Hmmmmm … if you have answered “yes”, then you may be a foodie.

Fayetteville is the perfect place for you. It’s a very small town, but has a big town selection of restaurants. There are so many great places that it will be difficult to choose just one if you are here for a short visit. Consider these options; low-country Cajun; upscale Latin cuisine; Mexican; Italian; biscuits the size of your head, bar-b-que; vegan; yummmmmac and cheese; coffee, latte, and espresso bars; bacon-bacon-bacon; chains and not-chains; I scream for ice cream; eclectic soups, sandwiches, and salads; pizza unlike any you have had before; burgers; milkshakes; fresh from the oven baked goods; and … well, the list goes on and on.

Pretty much, if you are hungry for it, you can find it in Fayetteville. When you pair that up with our collection of fun and funky restaurant décors, drinks, and happenings, you have the BEST spot to land to relax and replenish your energy tank. We are the most fabulous dining destination in West Virginia.

Check out http://visitfayettevillewv.com/restaurants/ to find out where to eat in one of America’s coolest small towns; Fayetteville, West Virginia!

The Kaymoor Mine powder house, now restored, still stands today. Photo Courtesy of the Library of Congress

The trees lit up so violently I could’ve sworn I was about to be run over by a truck had I not been running down an abandoned railroad grade scraped from the side of a 1000 foot deep gorge. I looked over my shoulder to see a full, orange moon rising behind me rolling light down to the river below.

As if on cue, a coal train rounded the river bend it’s headlight piercing the shadows like a bramble to skin. It grated past in a metal on metal clatter  and reverberated a groan that rolled over the canyon’s wooded folds as it has for over a century past.

It’s a familiar story here in the New River Gorge of West Virginia. Opposing elements, nature and the will of man, engaged in a seemingly endless territorial dispute. They bicker effortlessly and ineffectively, neither one gaining the upper hand, like an old married couple who give and take in maintenance of their peaceful symbiosis. So it is that stone walls cave to roots and trees cave to kudzu. The kudzu brought here by the railroads that rot, and rust as they groan with the sound of the land being towed away.

One of several entrances into the Kaymoor Mine.

I run, only a bystander passing through a borrowed space. Rounding my own corner, sandstone walls of the powder house slide out of the night standing watch over the Kaymoor Mine. Here in the dark with my plastic, LED headlamp and self imposed labor I borrow a kinship that I have not earned. My running shoes fail to fill the footprints pounded in this very earth by those who called the Gorge their home. Those who arose in the dark of morning to descend into the dark of the earth and return by the dark of night. Those who measured their day by the pound hacking a living from these walls as the coal dust hacked the living from their lungs.

I run through this ghost town and through their legacy. It hangs across the trail in a steady, humid chill slipping into the Gorge. It will remain here, long after the path they carved into this earth falls to root and vine. I will return here as often as I can to borrow this space, and this freedom.

Montani Semper Liberi – Mountaineers are always free.

You can visit the Kaymoor Mine in the New River Gorge of West Virginia via the Kaymoor Trail to witness first hand the remnants of a mining town that thrived from 1900 t0 1962. In that 62 year period minors removed 16,904,321 pounds of coal, cut by hand, hauled by mule to the surface then delivered by conveyor belt to the coke ovens and railroads below on the banks of the New River.

West Virginia is Wild, Wet and Wonderful, above average rainfall in the Gauley River watershed has local outfitters and area businesses gearing up. Every year there is great anticipation among whitewater fanatics for the weekend after Labor Day!  The fall drawdown of Summersville Lake unleashes The Beast of the East – The Gauley River.  It looks like we have dodged the drought that is plaguing most of the United States this summer. US Army Corp of Engineers Chief, Tim Curran consulted the Drought Monitor and it showed West Virginia and the New and Gauley River drainage area as predominantly in the normal range.  He added, “Speaking in a hydrological fashion, within the normal variation of year to year, this will be a normal Gauley River whitewater season”.  This is great news for thousands of whitewater enthusiasts from all around the world that plan annual visits to the Gauley River in southern West Virginia. The US Army Corps of Engineers scheduled is out for this years twenty one day Gauley Season and they expect to release a minimum of 2,800 (cfs) during all five of the scheduled four day weekends. Have a safe and enjoyable time on the river! For more information on whitewater in West Virginia or the 2012 Gauley Season visit www.americasbestwhitewater.com

Bobby Bower
WVPRO

When we awoke the morning after the derecho hit Fayetteville on June 29th, we knew we were all in for some hard times. Downed trees and the terrific wind caused loss of power, phone service, Internet, and many were without water. Long lines for ice and fuel for vehicles and generators ensued. Keeping the home going and the family fed and cooled in the 95 degree weather were just some of the challenges we faced.

Travellers through the area in those first few days after the storm were caught in the chain of no food, no motels vacancies, no gasoline, and being far from friends and family that might be able to help. The following story was reported in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by one such traveller. It exemplifies just one of the things that makes Fayetteville so very special; the people in our community.

Saturday Diary / Thank you, West-by-God-Virginia
July 8, 2012 11:06 am

By Karen Kane / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“You”re in West-by-God-Virginia,” said the shirtless man in the car idling in the parking lot of a darkened Exxon station at the crossroads of Routes 19 and 16 in the tiny town of Fayetteville, W. Va.

He had overheard me on my cell phone talking to the city desk of the Post-Gazette, the first place I turned to for information when it finally hit me that something was seriously wrong in this neck of mountainous woods. “I”m in a tiny town in Virginia,” I was telling my colleague.

In reality, I had crossed the border into West-by-God-Virginia a while back on my journey home from Hilton Head with a van-full of females ranging in age from 13 to 84. But I was flustered by the gas gauge reading “E” and the unanticipated closure of this gasoline station, so I had misspoken. This gentleman with the big smile and the gentle twang was making sure I knew just where I stood — which happened to be 233 miles south of home.

I had departed my beach vacation at 4 a.m. that day. A few hours into the trip, we stopped for breakfast at a Swansea, S.C., cafe specializing in fatback and side meat. I took notice of a local paper but passed, figuring the news would be old by the time I got around to reading it.

So I was flying blind, not knowing that severe storms the night before had wiped out electric service from Virginia and Maryland through West Virginia and D.C., all the way to the southern counties of Pennsylvania. As my colleague at the PG told me, fixing things could take up to a week.

I had gassed up in friendly Swansea and was planning to stop next when I hit the non-interstate part of my journey between I-77 and I-79. It”s a stretch of Route 19 around Beckley known to me until Saturday, June 30, 2012, only as a potential speed trap for drivers reluctant to downshift to legal limits. I knew this from personal experience, having been stopped thereabouts a few years back on my way home from Atlanta.

When we hit 19, I hadn”t given much thought to seeing a gasoline station with vehicles lined up along the roadway, waiting to fill up. Traffic on 77 had been a nightmare. We had moved at speeds lower that 25 mph for so long that my GPS showed my ETA gaining 90 minutes. I figured lots of people had decided at the same time to gas up after getting off the interstate parking lot. But when I saw a second station miles and miles away with similar lines, I started wondering. That”s when I checked my gauge closely and saw that I had a little less than an eighth of a tank of gas.

I got off the highway at the next spot I could and landed at this Exxon station where plastic bags were covering the handles of the pumps and the interior of the building was dark.

I flagged down a sheriff”s deputy who told me I was in the midst of a declared emergency. He said there was one open filling station a few miles away using a generator to keep the gasoline flowing but I was certain that my tank would run dry before I made it there.

It was 90 degrees in the shade; our food supplies consisted of some PopTarts and peaches I had bought from a roadside stand. Local water and phone service were shut down; no hotels or restaurants were open; and only one food store in a two-county area was doing business and was likely to shut down soon, the deputy had said.

I was stewing over my predicament with my sunburned legs sizzling in the heat when I noticed a man standing outside a van with an Ontario license plate. His side doors were open, revealing a wife and three kids inside. He was holding a flushed infant. “Are you stranded, too?” I asked. A somber nod of the head. “We”re on our way to Orlando.”

I was pacing the pavement, trying to make arrangements with my husband to transport filled gas cans from home when along came Marty.

“Y”all OK out here?” he said from his open car window.

“I”ve been better,” I said. I told him I and my new friend Jon from Ontario were about out of essentials but had ample supplies of worry. He pointed to a red-roofed house standing above the Exxon station — the home of his parents, the mayor of tiny Fayetteville and his wife.

“I don”t know what we can do but y”all can sit on the porch and have a cold drink while we think about it,” Marty said.

When we all arrived at the house on the hill, we found Mrs. Mayor and Marty”s wife handing out bottles of water so cold there were beads of condensation forming by the second. Mr. Mayor was grilling burgers. They were setting up chairs for us and for another couple from Pittsburgh who had found themselves in similar straits.

After a minute or two of chatting about our situations, Mr. Mayor directed his lovely white-haired wife to flip the burgers. The similarly snow-capped mayor disappeared, returning with a red gas can.

“I filled this up yesterday so I could mow the grass,” he said, adding that he would divide the liquid gold among us. It would be enough to keep our engines running while we waited in the long lines of the Shell station that was operating on a generator a few miles away.

As we followed Marty on the back roads to the Shell, we passed more than a dozen overturned trees with root balls exceeding 4 feet in diameter and more broken branches than we could count. The power of Nature was evident. She had toyed with our urban trappings — traffic signals, water plants, electrical lines — like a toddler bored with her playthings. She had reminded us with her hot breath who was in charge.

But, the people of West-by-God-Virginia trumped Nature”s whims. She could have her way with her wind and her hail but they would have their say, too. And what they had to say was “Sit down and have a cool drink and let us help you find your way home.”

West-by-God-Virginia?

I say West-thank-God-Virginia-and-her-fine-citizens.

Karen Kane is a staff writer for the Post-Gazette (kkane@post-gazette.com, 724-772-9180).
First Published July 7, 2012 12:00 am