The Elk River Blog?

Or maybe, where the M/V Iron Duke has gone when I've seen turn out of the Kanawha with one or two loaded sand and gravel barges and head up the Elk River.

But that would be one long blog entry title. The photo above was taken in January, by the way.

Today I had to have my car worked on. While it was in the shop, I walked down the street about a mile, looked to my left and saw a bridge over the Elk River. Naturally, I had to check it out. From its sidewalk, I saw a clamshell scoop removing sand or gravel (it sounded like gravel) from a barge and deposit it in a hopper, from which a belt took it up on shore.

I took this with a phone camera. This is a cropped version of the original image.

It was interesting to look at the angle of the barge as it was unloaded from front to back. I stood there about 10 or 15 minutes before I figured it was time to walk back to the shop. Before I left, I noticed how the water line on the riverward side of the barge had changed.