Blogs from West Virginia, United States, North America - page 12

I headed across and up to West Virginia with Tina and Bryce, Nat & James tailing on the Monday. The entire journey featured beautiful lush trees, despite being on speedy roadways. We stopped on the outskirts of Leesburg (while looking for the "Premium Outlet Stores Jumbo Centre") and it reminded me SO much of England. Lovely lanes, timber fencing and cottagey/colonial homes. We shopped till we dropped, then headed for Charles Town, out base. Averill, B&T had been staying at the gorgeous Carriage Inn, hosted by Donn & Marie, who welcomed us all like extended family. It was the perfect palce for Ave to convalese. ... read more

Me and the gang decided to take part in the 2008 All Good Festival in West Virginia. What a show it was. The All Good Festival describes itself as a 3 day "music festival and campout". It certainly lived up to is billing. We arrived early Friday (along with 20,000 other people) and set up camp. The camping area wasn't anything more then an open field with knee high grass everywhere. We parked our car, grabbed our gear and staked out a spot. Our group of 6 deployed our gear and set up a nice area. We had 3 tents, table, chairs, an easy up shade and other amenities. We also had plenty of food and drink, along with a stereo and cards for entertainment. As camping went, we were hardly roughing it. The concert area ... read more

I skipped out of Huntingdon early Saturday afternoon for Martinsburg, WV. My apartment is clean and shut down, I saw most of the people I had on my list (of course it was a last minute whirlwind tour) and PanThar is carefully stowed with Mom for the summer. Jay's parents gave us their beautiful house to have a going away party. I wouldn't have recommended that, but they're generous people. They made us a great spread of food -- barbecue, tuna salad, pasta salad, chips, burgers, dogs, beer, etc. -- then fled for an overnight stay at a hotel. They told Jay, "We're too old for this anymore. I remember your graduation party. See you tomorrow." That was a good time. We had about 20 people over, many of whom have dangerous reputations in these situations, ... read more

Back on the road again and taking up the backpack is definitely harder second time round. All the funny little details soon come flooding back to you. For example, just how much you have to cram into your bag, how much you hate flying, having to convert every dollar you spend into a logical and meaningful value, and of course, finding somewhere to stay and something to see! Luckily we were picked up by Anne's godfather after a rather delayed flight and a slow trudge through US customs- amazingly avoiding all hassle, even with the dreadlocks in tow. We visited Harpers Ferry, a national park a small drive outside of Damascus where we were staying. The park tells the story of the slavery and race prejudice in America and pioneer thinkers who tried to free the ... read more

Day 100! Woo! It's crazy to think we're in the triple digits of the trip. We got out of our motel a bit late this morning, mainly because they had a good breakfast bar, and we wanted to utilize our internet connection to plan our next move. We wanted to hit West Virginia because there may not be another good opportunity to run through the State, and it's supposed to be pretty. Unfortunately, the forecast we were seeing was calling for rain off and on throughout the day, and solidly overnight. This didn't thrill us much, particularly since West Virginia is best known for its outdoorsiness. At any rate, we determined that we couldn't let inclement weather hold us back, and we began our drive. On our way, we made some calls to various attractions we ... read more