West Virginia was Hit and Miss

East River Mountain Overlook, Bluefield, West Virginia

After all the planning and preparing, I am finally on the road. What started out as a 3-4 hour beginning, ended up being over 7. Everything went as planned until I made it to my first planned camping spot. The spot was an old Army camp near the New River gorge in West Virginia. It was an unkept area that had spots and grills. What it also had was several men whom looked like some scenes from the movie Deliverance! After 1 guy drove up to me in his truck that looked like Fred Sanford's store in the back to ask me a few questions about my camper, I decided this wasn't the place I wanted to be. I'm sure it would have been ok, well, maybe not.

Trestle bridge New River Gorge, WV

As I was driving back to the main road, I ran across the wonderful old trestle bridge. It was just like some of the bridges I taught about in my engineering classes.  Civil engineering at it's finest.  I have seen several old steel trestle bridges in WV through out, it's like they get the steel locally or something!  haha  Speaking of which, it was sad to see some of the old mines that were closed along the way.  There were memorials outside each one that I could see from the road.  Kind of sad.
After leaving the gorge, I tried to make my way further north, but due to construction, I diverted and found myself at the top of the world, as seen above.  Very beautiful spot to just happen upon.  That's the cool part about this journey, I can stop whenever I want to since I really don't have a set agenda.  Most people that know me, know this isn't usually the case.  Just ask my wife Melanie, our trips to Disney are epically planned years in advance for just about every minute of the day.  This trip is different and I am trying to take myself out of the comfort zone so to speak.

View out my camper back door in Saint Albans, WV

I finally got back on track and drove a couple more hours up the road to find this quaint little free park in Saint Albans, WV.  I knew from previous research that they only had 3 spots that were provided to the public right on the river.  Since it was Friday evening, I didn't expect to get a spot but was pleasantly surprised.  It turned out to be a gem in the rough.  The views were fantastic and being free were priceless.
This day being the first of many turned around in the end.  Next stop?  Stay tuned!