Bridge Day…but not
October 18, 2025 is bridge day in West Virginia. As James explained yesterday, people go to the New River Gorge Bridge and jump off of it. They also climb down into the gorge. There are vendors and you can walk on this bridge that is typically (every other day of the year) used for driving so no walking. We got up early (again) and got breakfast at the hotel. We got on the road at about 9am. There was a half hour drive to get to the Walmart pretty close to the bridge itself and they have shuttles. We were coming from the south side of route 19. Anywho, we forgot to stop at the bank so when we got to the parking lot we were going to have to turn around and go back about 5 min to the bank and get cash. I had the idea to run into the Walmart and buy something to get cash back and avoid the extra drive time. Coming around the parking lot I saw a coffee stand and noted that for later. Driving around trying to find a place to park we saw the line for the shuttle. It started half way across the Walmart building and across the back of the lot, the around the one side and across part of the building. So overall, at 9:30am the line just to get onto the shuttle was probably an hour wait. They had school buses for transport which was a great idea but only 2 came to this spot. We decided to bail out and do something else. We didn’t want to stand in line for an hour to get there and then have to battle back onto the shuttle to go to our next stop. Still I made James stop for me to get coffee from the stand. It was so sugary and had extra sugar on top but I liked it.
Trying to get on the other side of the bridge was trouble. We took a small tour of Fayetteville, WV without trying. People were parking and walking everywhere. We did see the festivities and a small amount of protesters at the end of the bridge which was cute. I’m not sure why people were protesting base jumping but ain’t my circus, ain’t my monkeys, ya know?
We decided to go to Cranberry Glades Botanical Area on the way to Green Bank. It took an extra 45 min as advertised to get around the closed down 19 bridge but was a nice drive. There are a lot of leaves changing at this point and I think we are seeing more because we are driving north now. The botanical area was not as exciting as I imagined I will admit. I think we were about a week too late to see some pretty colors but it was a half mile stroll on a boardwalk and we managed to find plenty to photograph.
Next stop was the Green Bank Observatory. James would do a better job explaining this but I’ll do my best. Basically, there is a giant (and a few smaller) telescopes that listen to the solar system. Due to this, they have a 10 mile dead zone radius around this location to reduce interference. The goal is to listen to noise coming from outer space, not here on Earth. There was a sign asking you to turn off your phone because they could detect your phone on airplane mode from Saturn with the equipment they use there. On the way there we found a little used book store. It was bigger than I had expected actually and smelled like old books.
There is a little cafe in the observatory and there were these 2 sweet women working in there. One taking the orders and working the small pizza oven while the other woman put the pizzas together and was getting ice cream. The one behind the scenes had a cute purple top on and she was trucking back and forth from a storage room for extra cheese and milk. We ordered a soft pretzel and waited like 20 min for it while sitting in the cafeteria and watching people. Then we went into an area with some fun kids interactive set ups. Of course, there was a stop in the gift shop and we were able to take digital photos on the observation deck. Beyond the observation deck you had to turn off any digital item like phones, digital cameras, step counters, and things like that. Pacemakers were fine though.
You can walk the loop to see the telescopes and they do have a shuttle that will take you around. We did not do the sanctioned tour or the self guided one. Rebels.
From there we found our way toward Elkins - no GPS allowed in that radius either - but the map could still find our location so I was able to tell which way and roads to use. We are staying at the Tygart hotel right in town. It is a really nice place. We are on the fifth floor and I think we are the tallest building in the whole town. It has been a hotel since 1905 under a different name. There is a nice restaurant in the lobby that looked good but we had been in the car all day and didn’t feel like we would fit in there. So, we went to Beanders. We had burgers and some drinks, it was good. There was live music but we sat on the opposite side of the bar and it didn’t bother us. The people weren’t bad or anything, it just feels a little too much like AMT.
Tomorrow we drive home. It should only take about 5 hours. We’ll see if we make any stops along the way.
