We followed the West Virginian local's advice and let our GPS Garmin take us to Midland Trail (Route 60) and it was quite the ride from the forest campground over hill and dale up into Charleston, capital of West Virginia before getting us on our intended route.
We drove through Charleston along the river and it looked to be a beautiful city. Instead of all heavy industry along the river, there were beautiful new and old mansions. Charleston is on our todo list for a future trip. South of Charleston, we saw many poor trailer home communities, many of which were derelicts, among the massive coal processing areas that were accumulating and loading the coal onto trains. We counted five parallel train tracks through the area.
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| We followed the New River south alternating between poor trailer park towns and beautiful scenery like this |
We headed southeast into the mountains and opened all our windows to enjoy the wonderful late summer smells. We stopped at Hawks Nest State Resort Park that overlooks the New River Canyon. When I think of canyons, I think of the West with lots of multi-hued rock walls with a narrow bottom. This is a wide, tree-lined 585 foot canyon. We took a ski-lift down to the water and were thinking of taking the short jetboat ride up the river a bit, but the next boat was not leaving for over an hour, so we skipped it.
We drove on to Lewisburg, a decent sized town, where we planned on getting an urban campground with internet, laundry and phone serivce. Alas and Woe Is Us, the West Virginia State Fair is here - Now! State fairs are huge events in the south and midwest, and we got caught in a traffic jam, so didn't even bother trying to get a campsite in town and quickly checked our apps and campground books for alternatives.
We headed north out of town on the Seneca Trail (route 219) through pretty farm country where we saw barns painted the traditional red, at least the ones that still had paint! The road would leave the valley and the farmlands and climb steeply around tight switchbacks and then back down into another valley. One downhill stretch was 8% for 7 1/2 miles!
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| View from the top of one of the mountains |
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| Many barns have ornate siding |
We found a nice forested campsite in Watoga State Park - another massive acreage facility with lots of recreational activities, including fishing, hiking, trail bike riding and in winter, groomed cross country skiing trails. But, again, no internet or phone and we are beginning to have serious withdrawal symptoms. I am even writing this blog entry offline so that I can post if we ever get internet again!
We headed southeast into the mountains and opened all our windows to enjoy the wonderful late summer smells. We stopped at Hawks Nest State Resort Park that overlooks the New River Canyon. When I think of canyons, I think of the West with lots of multi-hued rock walls with a narrow bottom. This is a wide, tree-lined 585 foot canyon. We took a ski-lift down to the water and were thinking of taking the short jetboat ride up the river a bit, but the next boat was not leaving for over an hour, so we skipped it.
We drove on to Lewisburg, a decent sized town, where we planned on getting an urban campground with internet, laundry and phone serivce. Alas and Woe Is Us, the West Virginia State Fair is here - Now! State fairs are huge events in the south and midwest, and we got caught in a traffic jam, so didn't even bother trying to get a campsite in town and quickly checked our apps and campground books for alternatives.
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