Day 3 of the WV Trip

Ok, so I've been a little busy but I'm finally getting to Day 3 of my trip to West Virginia with the boys.

We woke up early on Saturday morning, packed up, checked out and headed toward our first stop for the day which was a nice little overlook of the New River. We were only here for a few minutes. Our time here would have been a lot less but Bereket had to go KaKa in the very nasty port-a-potty. Where is the gallon of hand sanitizer when you need it?

Anyway, we left there and headed to our next stop. In the town of Talcott, WV there is a grand statue dedicated to John Henry. I had made sure that the boys saw a video on John Henry before we visited the statue. Of course we also listened to the Johnny Cash song, "The Ballad of John Henry." By the way, if you don't know who John Henry is then I'll just let you google him.

We then continue our journey by visiting Pipestem State Park. This was a highlight for the boys. This state park has an aerial tram that takes you down the mountain to the Bluestone River. They loved the tram. It was very exciting. Once off the tram we went and explored the Bluestone National Scenic River. Joshua and Feromsa were having fun with "boat" races. The boats were large pieces of tree bark. Meanwhile, Bereket was "spearing" something in the river with a large stick he found. For all the time we had spent at rivers on this trip, this was the only one that one of the boys fell in. Joshua went down but fortunately it wasn't real deep so he just got a little wet.

After taking the tram back to the top of the mountain we left Pipestem State Park and headed home. On the way home we stopped at Cracker Barrel for lunch (this is a bit of a Raymer family tradition to stop here on the way home from a trip). We left there and traveled on. In the van the boys were watching Superman 4 and hardly noticed the tunnels that we went through this time.

Admittedly, we were all getting a little tired and were looking forward to being home but we had to make one more stop. We had to pay respects to Andy and Opie in Mt. Airy (aka Mayberry). I love this town. We stopped to see the statue and to look at the Andy Griffith memorabilia collection. Driving through the historic downtown area of Mt. Airy Joshua asked why they kept the place looking so old. I simply replied, just because they wanted to. He then asked, "So, this is how things looked back in the 1990's?"

We finally left Mt. Airy and made our way home. It was a great little trip. We saw a lot of beautiful places, historic places, and even a couple of statues. The boys watched 3 Superman movies and one classic Don Knott's movie. I love these trips where I get to see and experience new places but what really makes them great is sharing these trips with people that I love.

West Virginia Trip Day 2

Friday morning began early and after a not so great breakfast at the hotel we began to make our way to the falls at Hills Creek in the Monongahela National Forest. The drive took considerably longer than I had planned. However, I was delighted by the mountains. The morning was a cloudy, foggy, misty morning. The smoke of clouds rose up out of the trees of the mountains like wistful, angelic beings dancing up into the clouds. It was amazing watching them leave the trees to only disappear into the sky. The boys didn’t notice because they were watching Superman 3.

We finally arrived at our destination and enjoyed the morning exploring. The trail to the waterfalls was largely made up of stairs. Lots and lots and lots of stairs. Joshua decided that he wanted to collect some river water and then would add more river water to it from other rivers we would see on our trip. He brought a little water bottle and filled it about half way. He then preceded to show his water to everyone we met on the trail.

We left the waterfalls and went to the nearby Cranberry Mountain Nature Center ran by the Forest Service for lunch and a visit. While sitting outside having our lunch, a small group of seniors came walking by. Feromsa, the ever talkative one, began a conversation with one of the ladies. She asked how come there were only boys in our group. He quickly told her that Mommy and Hannah were home spending money.

The boys loved the nature center because they were able to see live snakes and turtles. However, the biggest highlight for them was an exhibit where you stuck your hand in a box and tried to guess what you were feeling. Their excitement at this must have been contagious because they were able to get grown men who had rode in on their Harleys to join in on the fun.

Our next stop was at Droop Mountain Battlefield State Park (yes, this is another Civil War battlefield). This was just a quick stop to climb a lookout tower and then we were back on the road again.

A little over an hour later we were at the Sandstone Falls on the New River. The boys especially liked this site. Not only did they have another opportunity to play in some water but, and this was a real special treat, they saw two dead fish floating in the water.

After Sandstone Falls we began to make our way to Grandview Park Overlook on the New River. This wasn’t a long trip but it was long enough for all the boys to take a quick nap. Grandview Park was a particular highlight for the boys. Here there is a short trail that leads to a “cave.” Really it is just a large crevice in an even larger rock. The crevice is about 30 feet long and at points is only about 3 feet high. For the boys it was one of the most amazing things we had done on the whole trip.

Our 2nd day ended with dinner at Wendy’s and the boys watching Shark Boy and Lava Girl. This night I shared a bed with Joshua. He unfortunately was not much better to sleep with than Bereket. Once again a pretty restless night while the three boys slept soundly.

4 Boys, 3 Days, 3 National Park Units, 3 State Parks, 1 National Forest, 2 Statues, and Countless Memories (West Virginia Trip Day 1)

So I decided to take a trip with just my boys to visit West Virginia. We left early on a Thursday morning for the 3 hours to our hotel. It would not take long for the memories to begin. Our journey would take us over the Blue Ridge and our first stop would be at Lover’s Leap Overlook on Highway 58. Our drive up the mountains was one of continual and thick fog. At the overlook we were above the fog but it still was sitting heavy in the mountains below. The boys just thought that it was amazing that we were above the clouds. Only an hour into this trip and the excitement level was high.

The excitement level soon did tamper off as the curves of the road up the mountain got the best of Joshua. Fortunately, we were able to find a place to pull over and stop before Joshua refunded the sausage biscuit he had for breakfast. When it was all said and done he looked at me and said, “Wow, I feel better.”

It was not long before the excitement grew again. This time it was for the first of 2 tunnels that we would be driving through on I-77 going through the mountains of Virginia. I believe that the word I kept hearing from the back of the van was “awesome!”

Around 11 we made a quick stop to check into our hotel. It was amusing to see that Feromsa is still fascinated by elevators. His excitement over riding the elevator took me back to riding the elevator at the hotel in Ethiopia. A year later, and there are still those things that are so common place for most of us that these young boys from Ethiopia still find amazing. Another example of this was Bereket’s thrill at seeing that our hotel room had a TV.

We left our hotel and headed for our first real stop: Carnifex Battlefield State Park. Here we saw a snake, had lunch, and of course, we saw a cannon. We also used this stop to visit Gauley River National Recreation Area. The battlefield is adjacent to the river and Joshua, perhaps to his regret, asked why they would have a battle on this mountain right next to the river (by the way, this was a battle in the Civil War that helped pave the way for West Virginia to become a state in the Union). History and military strategy lesson was quickly given.

Our next tour stop would find us at our first of many stops along the New River Gorge National River. We stopped to see the famous New River Gorge Bridge which is the 2nd longest single arch steel span in the world and the 2nd highest bridge in the country. We began this stop at the top of the gorge just under the bridge. From here we could look down into the river where the boys noticed a kayaker rolling his kayak. Once we were on the bank of the river Feromsa asked a kayaker if he was the one we saw going in the water. He wasn’t but he was happy to roll his kayak to the cheers of three boys. Before we actually got to the bank of the river where the boys talked to the kayaker and played in the water, we stopped on the old bridge to take some pictures. This bridge is narrow, old, and the road part of the bridge is made up of wood planks. There was nervous laughing while standing on the bridge and a car driving by would make the bridge rumble.

After playing in the New River (which according to scientist is actually the 2nd oldest river in the world – I just mention that for the irony of the name and not to make any Creationist friends mad nor to say that I agree with the scientist) we started to look for a place to eat dinner. Joshua scanned the horizon for a place to eat and suggested we eat at the first place he saw – Hooters. After driving around a little we ended up at CiCi’s Pizza.

Day one ended with us at the hotel. The boys attempted to go swimming but considering the high for the day was in the mid-seventies, the water was just too cold. That lasted all of about 10 minutes before they couldn’t take anymore. Back in the room we spent the evening watching the classic Don Knotts’ movie, The Incredible Mr. Limpet. For those who don’t know, in this movie Don Knotts plays a character who turns into a fish. Feromsa did not seem too bothered by the fact that a man could turn into a fish but simply could not understand how a fish could talk underwater. After the movie, everyone quickly fell asleep for a restful night. Unfortunately, I was sharing the bed with Bereket who felt it was necessary to lay on my side of the bed all night. Several times throughout the night I had to pick him up and lay him back down on his side of the bed. He, of course, slept right through this.