Almost exactly a year ago today, I saw my first photo of the Grist Mill at Babcock State Park in West Virginia, and immediately I began to search for a way to make a quick trip out during the month of October at some point in the future. I can't remember if it was here on flickr or on 500PX, but as soon as I saw it, I was hooked. For someone who has been starving for autumn scenes and foliage having grown up here in Southern California literally surrounded by palm trees, this scene just jumped out at me.
So I dug around and found that I had some free airline miles, and then contacted the Appletons who are good friends of mine who live in Loudoun County Virginia and they offered to let me crash at their place for five days. I was also able to get away with only missing one class at the college during what is typically one of the busiest times of the year. As soon as I had it all sorted out, I contacted Mike Besant, who is one of my good friends on flickr, and asked him if he knew of this park and how to get there. He said he was definitely aware of not only this park, but of several spots in West Virginia that would be gorgeous during the month of October.
So I waited....and waited....and finally I set off on October 9th on my quick jaunt through Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Virginia and Maryland were pretty much rained out for all five days, but Mike and I were able to shoot quite a bit of West Virginia on Oct 11-12. I kept shooting for the next two days, mostly in West Virginia and then came home pretty much exhausted but smiling with roughly 3000 frames on my cards. We shot some gorgeous waterfalls, lakes, farms, and long stretches of road, but Babcock was my favorite spot of the trip. There was just something so quintessentially Autumn about this little corner of West Virginia which was well off the beaten path and nearly forgotten by time.
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