By Shelby
This week we worked on the eastern edge of Kentucky before traveling through West Virginia. The weather is finally cooling down after the crazy heat and humidity we’ve been through this summer. Spencer is definitely enjoying the cooler temperature. I’m just wishing it won’t get any colder. Monday we worked from the public library in Ashland, Kentucky.
Before work, we went to the grocery store next to Planet Fitness. Our dinner plan was pan-seared salmon with mashed sweet potatoes and steamed sugar snap peas. We wanted to get the salmon in the morning so it would have time to defrost before we cooked it after work. As it turns out, we forgot to get a lot of stuff at the store that we needed, so we had to go back to the store after work. It was also unfortunate that the salmon had not completely thawed out in our fridge by that afternoon. Our solution to that was to put the individually packaged salmon filets on the dashboard to finish thawing. I’m sure we looked pretty goofy, driving down the road with raw salmon on the dashboard. Luckily, by the time we were ready to cook the salmon, it was thawed out.
Dinner turned out pretty good. The mashed sweet potatoes were especially delicious. But we have leftover cream. We’re hoping to make maybe some kind of pasta with a cream-based sauce with the leftover cream.
We worked from the same library on Tuesday. After work, we went to Tomcat Bourbon and Brewhouse. We figured we couldn’t leave Kentucky without trying some bourbon. I got a Kentucky Mule, which had Woodford Reserve bourbon, ginger beer, and lime juice. Spencer tried Old Forester bourbon. I thought my mixed drink was good, but I couldn’t take more than a small sip of Spencer’s straight bourbon. It was very strong. For dinner, we got buffalo chicken sliders and a brisket sandwich to share.
Wednesday, we worked from the same library again. After work, we drove two hours west into West Virginia to Beckley. This would be our base for New River Gorge National Park. Unfortunately, no Planet Fitnesses were open 24 hours in West Virginia. Wednesday night was pretty rough. We had decided to stay at Planet Fitness even though they weren’t open all night. There were a couple semi trucks in the parking lot also staying the night. I was nervous about getting knocked on, so I didn’t sleep well. Spencer got up in the middle of the night to take a picture of how empty the parking lot was. We really stood out. A street sweeper cleaning the parking lot woke us up pretty early as well. Fortunately, we did get through the night without being kicked out.
Thursday morning, we went to New River Gorge National Park, which was about 30 minutes away from Beckley. It was going to be a busy day. The park is pretty spread out and seeing the different sights would require a lot of driving. Our first stop was the Endless Wall hike, a couple mile long trail to viewpoints along the gorge. The beginning of the trail was in the woods. There were interesting looking tropical plants. The viewpoint was nice. We could see the gorge and the rocky edge of the cliff.
Our next stop was the Canyon Rim Visitors Center, where we walked down a bunch of stairs to see the New River Gorge Bridge. Before this bridge was built, it took a 45 minutes drive to cross the gorge using a small bridge at the bottom of the gorge. The New River Gorge Bridge cut it down to 45 seconds.
Next, we drove an 8 mile scenic drive to the bottom of the gorge and crossed over a small bridge, where we got a different view of the New River Gorge Bridge. Lots of people were kayaking in the river. It seemed kind of dangerous with all the rapids.
Grandview was our next destination. The Grandview Visitors Center was about another hour drive from the scenic road. One thing we noticed about West Virginia is that it is very mountainous. The highway had massive uphill and downhills. Larger trucks were struggling to make it up the hills. There were runaway truck lanes going downhill.
From the Visitors Center at Grandview, we walked a short trail to the viewpoint. This is where the New River has a massive bend. It was very nice, but we weren’t able to see the whole bend because there were some overgrown plants in the way.
From the viewpoint, we walked the Castle Rock trail, which followed along the cliffside from below. It was a very rocky and mossy trail. We both liked that it felt more natural than a boardwalk to a viewpoint. We also didn’t see any other people on the trail, so that was nice. At the end of the trail, there was an intersection where we met up with the Rim Trail. We took this trail back to the visitors center.
From the same main viewpoint, we took a short trail, called the Tunnel Trail, to see a small boarded up cave entrance. People used to be able to go in the tunnel, but not anymore for safety reasons. I probably wouldn’t go in anyway based on the amount of spiders I saw at the entrance.
Our next stop was the Sandstone Visitors Center, where we refilled our water bottles and looked at the exhibits. A short drive down the road, we stopped at a couple scenic overlooks over Sandstone Falls. Our final stop of the day was Sandstone Falls. We walked along a boardwalk that went onto an island where we were able to view the falls from different spots. There was a sign that explained that the falls were slowly moving upriver due to erosion. I thought that was pretty interesting.
After eating dinner at the falls, we drove an hour back to Beckley. We knew we didn’t want to stay at Planet Fitness again. We tried going to a Walmart 15 minutes away, but there were “no overnight parking” signs everywhere. We moved on to a travel plaza a little out of the city and that worked out really well. It was very quiet and we didn’t have to worry about getting knocked on at all.
Friday morning, we drove back over to Planet Fitness to shower and get ready for the day. We had a lot of driving and walking ahead of us. Beartown State Park was our first stop of the day about an hour and a half from Beckley. At the state park, we did a short boardwalk through interesting sandstone rock formations. The boardwalk was surprisingly elaborate, with multiple offshoots to different viewpoints. We didn’t see any bears, though, despite the name.
Our next stop was Cranberry Glades, where we did another short boardwalk into a bog. It was very pretty. There were yellow fields of flowers and mountains in the distance. We saw a few small wild cranberries growing close to the ground. There was even a bubbling brook. After our walk, we ate a quick lunch before heading out to our next destination.
The Seneca Rocks Trailhead was our next stop. This was two hours away from Cranberry Glades on a long, curvy road. I really think West Virginia has the curviest roads I’ve ever been on. As soon as you turn the wheel one way, you immediately have to turn it back the other. I guess the locals are used to the roads because they were going much faster than us. As we were driving, we thought about the song “Country Roads” since we were driving on country roads in West Virginia.
Before we went to the trailhead, we stopped at the visitors center to fill up on water and look at the view of Seneca Rocks. Seneca Rocks is a famous rock formation at the top of a mountain in Monongahela National Forest. It’s a popular rock climbing destination, but we were only planning on doing the 3 mile round trip hike to the overlook at the top.
The hike up the mountain was really nice. It had a good incline without being uncomfortably steep. The view from the top was also nice. There was probably a decent sunset from there, but we weren’t planning on staying that late. After returning to the bottom of the mountain, we started off to our last destination of the day.
Spruce Knob is the highest peak in West Virginia. There is a long road to the peak, where you can walk a trail with amazing viewpoints. You’re also allowed to park there overnight, which is what we planned on doing. We ran into a group of people who were tent camping there as well. We had dinner at a pullout on the side of the road where we had a view of the sunset. I slept pretty well that night, despite the colder temperatures. It was so dark, I could see the milky way.
Spencer got up early Saturday morning to check out the sunrise. When he got back, he informed me that some kind of small animal had gotten into the car last night. There was a shredded paper towel in the front center console with what could have been mouse or chipmunk droppings. Underneath the driver’s seat, there was a piece of chocolate with bite marks on it near one of the ventilation holes. We cleaned up the car and checked for any evidence that the rodent was still there, but we didn’t see anything. Animals nesting in a Prius isn’t uncommon based on the Reddit group “Prius Dwellers” that we follow. They like nesting behind the glove compartment, so we were pretty worried. The rest of our food looked undisturbed, and the cabin air filter behind the glove compartment was clear.
After closely inspecting the car, we decided to move on to our next stop, Blackwater Falls State Park. Blackwater Falls was a little over an hour away from Spruce Knob on another curvy and hilly road. In the park, we stopped at the Blackwater Falls Trading Post to see Blackwater Falls. It was extremely busy and crowded. The leaves on the trees were starting to change color, so maybe that’s why there were so many people.
Our next stop in the park was the observation deck at Pendleton Point, an overlook over Blackwater Canyon. It was a short walk from the parking lot. It was very beautiful and not very busy.
Next up was Lindy Point. Lindy Point was an overlook on the other side of the canyon and required a short hike through the woods to get there. It was much busier than Pendleton Point. We passed a lot of people on the trail. The view was very beautiful again. We took some pretty amazing pictures before moving on.
We were starting to get hungry, so we decided to eat lunch before our next hike. When we were done eating, we did a short hike to Elakala Falls, another scenic waterfall. Elakala Falls was less popular than Blackwater Falls since you actually had to hike to get to it. We climbed down a steep hill to get to the bottom of the falls.
Our final stop of the day was another 3 hours away in Frederick, Maryland. It was a long drive. We were happy when we crossed into Maryland and the highway became much straighter. I was pretty tired of the curvy roads by now. It was also nice to have cell service again. It seemed like we didn’t have service in most of West Virginia. We stayed the night at the Planet Fitness in Frederick, where we plan on staying for the next few days.
Sunday was another busy day. We had a lot to do. We did laundry at the laundromat next to Planet Fitness. Then we took the Prius to a car wash and did a thorough cleaning and vacuuming of the interior. Fortunately, we didn’t come across any evidence of an animal nesting somewhere. We had left out a piece of cheese Saturday night to see if it would be eaten. It was left untouched, so hopefully whatever animal had gotten in left the same way. Then we went to a library and did some work on the website and planned out the next few days. Overall, it was a great week. West Virginia was a really beautiful state. Check out even more pictures on our page “West Virginia”.
Fun Facts from Week 21:
- All bourbons are whisky, but not all whisky is bourbon.
- The New River is one of the oldest rivers in the world. Anywhere from 10 to 300 million years old. Read more here.
- The name Monongahela comes from one of many possible translations of Native American words. A commonly quoted translation is: “the river of falling banks.” Read more here.
- The U.S. National Parks are managed by the National Park Service and are primarily designed for preservation. On the other hand, U.S. National Forests are managed by the USDA Forest Service and designated for sustainable multiple-use, including logging, grazing, fishing, and recreation. Total forest land is roughly twice the size of total park land.
