For our next trip…it’s back to West Virginia! Last year we spent a week touring around the state and stayed in Elkins for a short time. It is a cute little town and we decided to come back and spend some more time here. We booked ourselves in the Tygart Hotel and ended up in the exact same room as a year ago. We have a giant king size bed and a good amount of space for a hotel room.
We drove into town on Thursday October 29th. It was about a 5 hour drive and went perfectly. Beautiful day and a beautiful drive. James drove the whole way in our rented Acura. Unfortunately, this car has Jersey plates and I almost made James take it back to exchange but they say it’s good on gas so fine. Here we are.
We stopped at an overlook on the way that had some great graffiti.
Anyway, the first night we checked in and had dinner at Jimbo’s right down from the hotel. We walked over and I had a very delicious fall margarita while James stuck with the standard rum. We shared a bunch of food like a burger, wings, cheese curds, and soft pretzels.
Friday we got up and got breakfast at a diner around the corner called Scottie’s. They were busy but super efficient. The food was great. I had a breakfast sandwich and James had some pancakes, sausage, and hashbrowns. Then we were off for some exploration.
We started about 45 min away from Elkins in the town of Thomas. James found all of the stops on our adventure today and they were all great by the way. This town has a strip of shops that we meandered through. I found some good stuff here! I ended up getting a few Christmas gifts and got 2 Christmas ornaments for our house.
They had the town decorated for fall/Halloween and it was adorable. We went into an antique shop. There was a really cool old door I wanted to bring home but James said no…
At the end of the strip of shops was a place called the Purple Fiddle that has some live music. We went in but I didn’t realize it was a place to eat and we were still full from breakfast. They had some good looking ice cream but we didn’t get any. There isn’t anyone playing this weekend that I recognize but I think it would be a nice place for some music. They have a pretty big stage for a restaurant.
After spending a couple hours wondering through Thomas, we were off to the outdoorsy portion of our day. Next stop was Blackwater State Park, which was fairly close to Thomas, and right beside the adventure town of Davis. We used GPS to get there, and found it easily. However, when we got to the parking lot, we found that there was a gift shop and snack bar, but not really anything that you would typically see like a visitor’s center or ranger station. So, James figured we should find the real trailhead to get to the main attraction, Blackwater Falls. We tried to find the viewing platform on GPS before getting into the car. Then, once we got going again, assumed that GPS was taking us to that new location. It didn’t. Kacie was driving and the directions took us right to Davis, which was the previous next location we had set when we started. So we ended up in Davis, which luckily was about 3 minutes away. We realized what happened, and then turned around and headed right back to where we were before, which was the actual trailhead, if you can call it that, to walk down to the falls.
Turns out we had previously been about 10 feet from the start of the trail that drops down into the riverbed to a few viewing platforms. Figures. But we figured it out and didn’t waste much time getting on track. The trail is about 200 steps down to the last platform, right beside the falls. There were a few spots to stop on the way down to get a good look as well. Stopping right beffore the last platform was probably the best picture spot. There weren’t too many people there, but enough to get in the way periodically, as with most state parks post covid. Kacie had her good camera out and James carried the tripod, also grabbing a picture or video on the phone. It was a cool spot, and as usual, Kace got many good pics and a few videos, below.
Once we finished up at the bottom, we started back up. it’s not terribly sleep, but we were both beat once we got back to the car. We don’t do as much hiking as we used to.
The next planned stop was to be in Canaan Valley for a drone flight, but all day it had been pretty windy, as usual up in the mountains. And although the good drone could handle some wind, James figured we might get there just to find that he didn’t want to take the chance of loosing the drone in the wind and having to track it down in an unknown wilderness. And since we already running low on good daylight, we decided to skip it and head right to the next photo op, Seneca Rocks.
We ended up driving back through Davis, which was on the original list. It was much more crowded than Thomas, even though it was comparable in size. The main strip in this town was mostly restaurants and ski shops. Which means that people prefer to pretend to be adventurous over artsy. We don’t. And we didn’t stop anywhere in town, which took about 2 minutes to drive through.
Then a nice drive through the mountains for 45 minutes or so. The roads are a little crazy down here. Steep grades and switchbacks, but still nothing compared to out west. Since we’ve driven on those crazy roads out there, James had no trouble driving like a local up and down the mountains, arriving at the next location, Seneca Rocks, around 4pm.
Seneca Rocks is a crazy rock formation on top of a mountain west of Elkins. They say it’s some of the best rock climbing in the east. We were definitly not looking to climb anything, but it is also a cool feature to see and photograph. If we ever did feel like climbing a shear rock face, we won’t, there are numerous rock climbing schools around the area, along with a few outfitters and bars. We had plans for dinner, so we headed right to the lot at the base of the mountain. You could drive further up to it, which is how you get closer to climb it, but there was literally a sign that said vehicle usage was not advised on the road, but feel free to do it anyway. Good old West Virginia. We didn’t. It was actually a great place to get some good pictures, especially if you have the lenses Kacie does.
The weather was perfect today and the sky was so blue. I haven’t seen a blue sky like this since Rocky Mountain National Park.
Once she was finished getting some cool shots, some of which are above, we stood by the car and took it in one last time before leaving. There was a nice old guy that saw us looking at the rocks with Kacie’s longest lens and came up to point out a few climbers you could see from where we were, if you knew where to look. He did. He was a nice guy from Michigan. Thanks for pointing them out buddy.
After hanging out with that guy for a sec and checking out the climbers, we headed back to Elkins. It was about a 45 minute drive, getting us back around 5:30. We got to the hotel and took all of our gear back up to the room. James had seen a restaurant he wanted to hit the last time we were here, CJ Maggies. Their menu is pretty big and had plenty for either of us, not the usual burger for James, although they had a few different ones to try, and not fake meat offerings, which I appreciate. We got right in and decided not to drink that night, which is rare for us on vacation. We started off with something neither of us had heard of before, Alfredo bites, which really were mac and cheese bites with alfredo on top. Cheesy and delicious. Then Kacie ordered crab cakes, which James didn’t even give her crap about until later, since seafood that far from the sea always makes James uncomfortable. And James ordered beef and gracy, which really was a open-faced roast beef with mashed potatoes. It was all delicious. And a lot of food. Kacie got three crab cakes and rice, and James’ plate was overflowing. We were stuffed. So we paid and headed back down the street to the hotel. Although neither of us prefer it, it’s nice once in a while to stay in town and be able to walk to everything. We stopped by a tree Kacie started taking pictures of and talked to some weird lady who made weird sexual inuedo jokes about the leaves while James said something stupid about crossing the street. The lady got confused and made the whole situation even funnier. You don’t care about that reading this, but Kacie laughed the rest of the way home, and that laugh makes everyone happier.
After getting back to the room, we cleaned up and started writing this. Well, she didn, and I’ll finishing it up. Tomorrow we just plan on relaxing and wondering around town. We may not even get into the car. It should be nice.
