West Virginia - Part One

10-7 to 23, 2017
After buying our new truck we took off for a West Virginia destination!! We immediately were thankful for our decision to buy a new truck. It is a dream to pull our home!! It pulls with no struggle, no strain. It just does the job!

We are still getting used to the truck and decided to take interstate as much as possible. We stayed at Baileyton RV Park in Baileyton, TN the first night. The second night we stayed at Shenadoah Valley Campground in Verona, VA. I know a lot of people think this is a great campground but we found it over crowded with little kids running and screaming, sites that were super close together and just not a great place to be. One night was enough.

We drove into West Virginia and boy was it beautiful!! The trees are changing and the mountains are stunning! The only thing disturbing about this area is all the Confederate Flag waving. Even some huge ones flying high on mountain tops! Pretty sure we had a civil war and we are all part of the USA now! We drove thru Davis, West Virginia and then to the Canaan Valley State Park. It is right on the edge of the Monongahela National Park., where we met up with our sweet daughter Karis.

Since it was Tom's birthday, Karis gave him a gift from she and the Kalis family. It was a beautiful lime green hammock! Karis also brought an Apple Pie she made from apples she picked in Maryland last week. She even made little fall leaves out of the dough! Happy 63rd birthday Tom!!

We have a beautiful campsite!! All trees as far as we could see outside our door and no neighbors! AND it has water, electric and sewer services!! We will be here for 2 weeks of bliss!

Having Karis around for a week was wonderful! We hiked ("sauntered") through the woods and mountains of West Virginia.

Tom might have fallen off this large boulder on his first attempt to climb it!

One lane road we took for several miles....  a beautiful but frightening drive!!

One day, we rented a bike for Karis and rode 13 miles of Rails-to-Trails path from Thomas, WV to Hamilton WV. We encountered 4 waterfalls along the way. Some locals call it a "bucket list" ride. It did not disappoint!! Here are several photos taken along the way. We stopped and ate lunch on rocks next to one of the waterfalls. The trees were turning and falling and the day was perfect!

It was cool/cold in the late morning when we started off!

There were 4 waterfalls along the way!

We stopped and ate lunch at this waterfall!

Another day we went to the ski area and rode the chair lift to the top. What a great view! We sauntered through the thick forest at the top where lots of varieties of moss were growing.

You can see the Canaan Valley State Park and Resort in the valley behind us.

You can see from the photos above that the trees are almost bare. It had rained one night and and the wind pretty much emptied the trees! We woke up to this one morning: Where is the picnic table?

Of course we had time for a campfire and S'mores! Also enjoyed the occasional deer wandering into our campsite.... and one skunk! We each took turns napping in the hammock too! We put together puzzles and watched National Geographic DVD's about various topics.... no internet! We read books and ate at local pubs with local brews. We had a great week with Karis but it went by way too quickly!

Great local brews!

Deer came into our campsite every evening.
They weren't afraid but they were timid.