The Putnam Scoop

I have been given a writing assignment by my friend Jason Keeling at A Better West Virginia. OK, maybe it’s not an assignment. It’s more like we’re on a mission.

West Virginia gets a bad rap sometimes. Even the vice president made fun of us recently.

Eh. He’s wrong and had a moment of stupidity. I can get over it, we all make mistakes.

Our mission is to try to turn the typical stereotypes of West Virginia around. That’s something I can believe in … but then I had a thought:

What ARE the stereotypes of West Virginia? Shouldn’t I find out what people really think before I just assume people think poorly of us?

This is where I need your help. Excluding what you’ve been told about this state, what do you think of when you picture West Virginians?

Maybe it’s not really bad. I’m thinking of the people I know from West Virginia that are out there loose in the world, and I’m proud of what they’d have to show the world about us. I can’t imagine that anyone who’s met some of our own could think poorly of our state.

If you DO think poorly of us, go on and have your say, we don’t really mind. And if you have a nice idea of what a West Virginian is, would you mind sharing it and letting me use bits of your comments in a post on Friday for West Virginia Day?

I’d just like to hear what you think of when you picture a random West Virginian, based on what you know from your own experience. Maybe we’d be surprised about what our stereotype even is, or maybe we have a lot of work to do. I’m begging for comments this time, please help!!

Thank you for your time!

Tired of paying a fortune in gas? Want to take the family somewhere fun but close? You need a “Staycation”, a vacation in West Virginia — someplace you can get to with just one tank of gas. First stop, Ace Adventure Center!

The name says it all — this is the top of the line Adventure Center in West Virginia! Whatever sport or activity you’re interested in, Ace Adventure Center likely has it covered. This is a wonderland for the active outdoor family.

Among their array of activities:

• White water rafting (over 140 different trips!)
• Mountain biking
• Kayaking
• Rock climbing
• Cave exploration
• Fishing
• Paintball games

You’ll find a selection of packages for weekend stays, day trips or full vacations. This is a HUGE 1,400 acre resort with a wonderful staff of knowledgeable and friendly people. Safety is above all, you will have a lesson with thorough explanations before you set off on any adventure.

My family and I went horseback riding at Ace last summer. (No, that is not us in the rafting picture, that’s a stock photo offered to the press by Ace, and I figure blogging counts as “press”, right?) Before our ride, we were given a detailed lesson in steering, stopping and what to do “if”. We’ve ridden before and NEVER have we had such good instructions.

“What do you do if your saddle starts to slide to the side?” Gasp! I didn’t know! I hadn’t even thought about it! But we were shown by one of guides, just stand in the stirrup on the opposite side and jerk on the saddle horn to realign it. (I was so happy we’d had this instruction as later my teenager had this very problem, several times.) We were shown easier ways to steer, by reaching down closer to the horse’s mouth you have greater control. It seemed like simple common sense, but I appreciated the lesson both for myself and my kids. We were offered helmets but all declined. I probably should have taken them but had never been offered at other riding stables.

Our guides instructed us to learn our horse’s name. It was too difficult for them to remember each rider’s name, but they work with and know these horses well. My horse was Rocky, named for his “gentle ride”. :o) For the length of the ride, my family members were renamed Buzz, Dan, Flipper and Casper. The kids thought that was really cool.

We took a two hour ride through the beautiful, cool green forests of West Virginia. The trail was gentle enough without being boring, as was my horse. (He got one little jump in just before we left, maybe testing out the new shoes he’d just received.) Our guide (I think his name was John) was wonderful. He kept an eye on the kids, which I appreciated, and was friendly and talkative. I told him how impressed I was with the health of the horses and he told me much more about their care. These are well cared for horses. John also reminded my daughter “Flipper” many times to stand in her saddle and jerk on that saddle horn to straighten it out. “Flipper’s” Mother appreciated the care shown for all the kids that day.

They warned us before the trip — the legs you get on the horse with are NOT the legs you get off the horse with. Prepare to have jelly legs for a bit, and be careful when getting off your horse.

We had a great time and plan to return. Months later, I was surprised to receive a calendar in the mail from Ace Adventure Center. I flipped through and found a picture of our exchange student and myself in May!! I was so pleased, as I hadn’t gotten a picture of her on her horse. I called Ace and asked them for a few more copies to send to her family, and they sent them to me immediately. The calendar is filled with colorful pictures of people having a great time — if you have a look you’ll want to go there yourself!

You can contact Ace Adventure Center at ace@aceraft.com or 1-888-223-7238. Ace is located at Oak Hill, about an hour and a half from Hurricane, WV.

While I was in Arizona I had the opportunity to visit the Sonoran Desert. Coming from West Virginia, surrounded by our green hills, I was expecting a dry, dusty, dead looking place.

I was SO wrong. The Sonoran Desert gets more rainfall than any other desert, making it the greenest of all deserts. It still only receives ten (or less) inches of rainfall each year, but it is very much alive and lush. It’s the only place in the world where the marvelous saguaro cactus grows wild.

We only traveled a short distance from Scottsdale and were rewarded with breathtaking desert views. Below is a collage of a few of my pictures from the trip. If you’d like to see more, you can visit my Flickr set here.

Over the weekend I was in Arizona for meetings and training with Real Estate Shows. Jeff Turner, one of my amazing bosses, took me for drive so we could snap sunrise pictures in the desert. I love taking sunrise pictures here, so I jumped at the chance to see a sunrise there!

This is pretty much how it went:

I’ve spent the last few days in Arizona for a business trip with Real Estate Shows. This was the first time I’d been out west and I LOVED it — but I was also kept pretty busy and didn’t have a chance to talk about it like I had planned. I think I’ll go over little bits of it for the next few days.

Step one was flying out, and I got to fly above Charleston on a beautiful, sunny day. I thought you might like to see an aerial view of Charleston first of all.

I thought it was interesting to see the muddy flood waters joining the Kanawha.

Tomorrow: A desert sunrise.

This is exciting.  Trust me.

Yesterday 304blogs.com was launched and it is a sweet little slice of West Virginia, right there in your very own computer!  

Just like West Virginia itself, it has a little of everything.  You’ll see a whole host of blogs (more being added all the time!) with a little rundown of recent posts linked underneath.

There are Flickr photostreams, too.  For some reason they included mine and I will apologize for that, even though I am so very honored!!  I am pretty random in my photos and for the next couple weeks I’ll be in Arizona and North Carolina, so I won’t be all that “West Virginia” for a while.  Bear with me, I’ll get it back in gear.

I remember struggling to find WV bloggers a while back, there just wasn’t a good way to find them other than through their own links.  Now we have a HOME.

Thank you, 304blogs!  I’m loving it!

Tomorrow I’m flying out to Phoenix, Arizona for meetings and training for my new position at Real Estate Shows.

I am SUCH a West Virginia homebody. Aside from trips to visit family in Tennessee and North Carolina, I am HERE. For years and years and years, I have been HERE. I love being surrounded by green trees and our hills make me feel like I’m being held in God’s own hand, comforted and safe.

But tomorrow I will be seeing stuff I’ve never clapped eyes on before, and I thought I’d share a little of it with you. I’ll be putting some Arizona pictures here in The Putnam Scoop just for contrast. I imagine that the sights I’ll see will be beautiful, but will only leave me loving home more. I hope it will do the same for you, too.

So watch this space for a taste of very “unlike West Virginia” pictures!

I got Meme’d AGAIN – this time by both Rich Jacobson and Marc Grossman. I’m up for it, so here goes:

1. Who’s your favorite musical artist? That’s a tough one. I don’t even know. I am still listening and learning all the time, and if you’d like to listen along with me you can do it here. I think my favorite song is probably Indiana by Jon McLaughlin, which you can find there.
2. Who’s your favorite artist? I only had to think about this for a minute. My favorite artist is Rebecca Burch. She’s a local art teacher and I know her through her blog, Carpe You Some Diem and through her Flickr pictures. She shows me local stuff in a new way and does wonderfully creative stuff with her classes! I’ve told her I want to take a picture taking walk with her class in Charleston sometime and I’m not kidding – I do want to. If I was supposed to name some name you guys can see in a museum … well, just wait. Maybe you’ll see her there.
3. Who is your favorite blogger? Uhhh … I am crazy about a bunch of bloggers, but my current favorite is Suzanne McMinn of Chickens in the Road. She’s an author who lives on a farm in West Virginia and pretty much just writes about her family and her life. And it’s FASCINATING. She makes me proud to be a West Virginian in a really low-key, of course-we’re-that-fabulous kind of way.
4. If you could meet anyone (alive or dead), who would it be and what is the most interesting thing about them? I’d want to meet Jesus. Ultimate love, life of service, can forgive anyone of anything … yes, I’d want to meet Him.
5. What did you want to be when you grew up? I wanted to be a veterinarian. I’ve always loved animals and making things better. But then there’s all that math and science and stuff. Eh.
6. What is the most interesting piece of trivia you know? If you want to stifle a sneeze, tickle the roof of your mouth with your tongue. It works. (But is it interesting?)
7. If you could live in any point in history what would it be and why? I want to be HERE, NOW. I want to see what happens next.
8. What is the most interesting job you have ever held? I’m loving the one I just started! I never know what’s going to happen, I get to chat with nice people all day and do some of that “make things better” from number five up there. When I tell people all the stuff they can do with Real Estate Shows they’re always surprised, or if I tell them a way they can use it that they haven’t thought of, they’re excited to go try it. I’ve even been able to teach people how to copy and paste. Let me tell you, if someone is trying to work in real estate and didn’t know how to copy and paste and you teach them, that person is VERY happy with you. VERY.

And this has nothing to do with my Meme but I had to share it and Bob said I could. The Real Estate Show below is by Bob Carney. You can read his post here (and go tell him how much it moved you, because it will). I just feel like it should be seen, so here it is.

Just wanted to share a little of what I’ve seen recently. We live in a beautiful place. : )