Vacation Continues in West Virginia

We had a very exciting time in West Virginia the last couple days.  Babcock State Park was beautiful.  It is park of the New River Gorge and we explored the Gorge area.  On Friday we drove down and checked into our cabin.  The cabin was mcuh nicer than expected.  Here is a shot of the outside.

It was too small to get a shot of the inside, but it had two very solidly constructed sets of bunk beds that were built right into the cabin and has a wall between them.  Each side had a dresser and in front of the beds was a table and four chairs.  There was a galley kitchen on the other wall and section that sticks out in the picture is the bathroom.  Everything was extremely clean including the vinyl floor (at least when we arrived).  The bedding was very nice as well.  The dishes, pots and utensils in the kitchen were also very clean.  The kids were very excited about the bunk beds and spent the time while we unpacked playing on the bunk beds. 

The park itself was also very neat and beautiful.  Here's a shot from the parking lot at the headquarters:

Here's a shot of the working mill at the park:

And here's a shot of the mountains from the park:

On Saturday we went to see the New River Bridge, the world's longest single-arch steel span bridge. 

We walked down 600 stairs to get a good view of it and then, of course, we had to walk back up, but the views were worth it:

We decided to take a scenic route out from the bridge and the plan was to find somewhere to get a snack and then to go to Sandstone Falls.  The road that took us down from the bridge to the river valley and across the river was nicely paved and other than a couple of very sharp turns was a nice ride.  However, we then ended up on a "road" made of mud and large rocks.  I don't know if everyone gets the commercial that talks about rebuilding compact SUVs and shows an SUV driving through a desert and falling apart.  All I could envision during out 50 minute drive through the middle of nowhere was that commercial, but our Torrent did great and finally got us out safely (along with Brian's driving).  The kids thought it was a lot of fun and that the bouncing was quite an adventure.

Finally, after a break back at the swimming pool at Babcock State Park, we went to Sandstone Falls because Mom still wanted to see the waterfalls.  They were also beautiful:

After we walked along the nice deck that is built along the falls for tourist we decided to take the easy hiking route back, where Mackenzie found a caterpillar to take a picture of:

Needless to say, I would definitely recommend a trip to West Virginia.  I would recommend to West Virginian's that they open some restaurants, at least in the New River Gorge.  Luckily we brought food with us and the cabin had a full kitchen so that we could cook our meals, because every time we thought that we would "find somewhere to eat" we could not find anywhere to eat.  We did find a few shops selling "Primitives".  We didn't go into any of the stores, but I am assuming they were selling art & crafts and not primitive people.

 

Sunday morning we headed to North Carolina to see Aunt Tina, Thomas and Nicholas and to go to the waterpark.  More coming on that later as it is time to start getting our swimsuits on . . .