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| "In The Pines" campsite |
When we left Maine we traveled through New Hampshire and
stayed just a couple of miles from the Vermont border at “In The Pines”,
another Boondockers Welcome spot, in West Chesterfield.
It just so happened that our Snowbird
neighbors from Venice, Dave & Karen Sutherland,
have their “summer home” just a few miles down
the road from where we were staying and even know the people who were letting
us stay on their property.
We had a great
visit with our hosts and Dave & Karen.
Jean especially enjoyed walking through Karen’s beautiful flower gardens
that literally surround their house.
While we were here, we also hiked in the Chesterfield Gorge and in the
Madam Sherri’s Castle Ruins (what an interesting place).
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| Madam Sherri's Castle Ruins |
We even drove into Vermont briefly so Jean
could visit a Vermont Country Store and we stopped in a really quaint town,
Bellows Falls, to have lunch at the Moon Dog Café. This is a great place to visit and have lunch
if you’re near here.
On the way to our next campsite, we drove through bits of
Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey to finally reach Kittatiny
Canoes – River Beach Campsites, in Milford, Pennsylvania.
This was a nice little campground, but 2
nights here was quite enough because it was tucked in between a river and a
highway, with an interstate paralleling the highway, and all the road noise –
especially the exhaust brakes on the semi-trucks -filtered right down into the
campground.
Seasonal RVs lined the banks
of the river and for the life of us, we can’t understand why anyone would
choose to be seasonal campers here!
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| Pine Grove Furnace State Park campsite |
Our next stop was out in the boonies, no cell service
here!
We stayed at Pine Grove Furnace
State Park, in Gardners, Pennsylvannia, which also happens to be the ½ way mark
for the Appalachian Trail through hikers.
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| 1/2 way marker for the Appalachian Trail |
To celebrate making the halfway point, the campstore offers the through
hikers a free ½ gallon of ice cream, flavor of their choice, if they can eat it
all.
We watched a tiny little girl
finish the whole ½ gallon, but a young fella had eaten a burger and fries first
and he was turning green trying hard to finish his.
We didn’t wait around to see how that turned
out for him!
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| Remnants of the iron furnace |
We also were able to take
the IronMaster’s Mansion tour.
It was
built in 1928 and today it serves as a hostel and provides dormitory-style
lodging for the trail weary hikers who like a bed, a hot bath, a hot meal, a
chance to do laundry, and catch up on wifi.
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| Jerome walking up to the Ironmaster's Mansion |
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| dormitory-style lodging inside the mansion |
We also hiked up the Pole Steeple Trail to a great overlook of the
countryside.
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| Jerome on the Pole Steeple Trail summit |
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| Jean on the Pole Steeple Trail summit - can you find her? |
From Pine Grove, we headed west into West Virginia, by far
the most mountainous of the states so far.
It seemed like at least half of the roads were one lane roads that were
supposed to pass for two lane roads, and every road was curve after curve,
sometimes even hairpin turns, and hilly.
It was like driving on a roller coaster and Carly didn’t like it at all
(it made her barf)! All three
campgrounds that we stayed in here were in the 100 mile radius of the Green
Band Observatory and thus in the designated “National Radio Quiet Zone.” What an interesting place! We were able to take the tour and explore the
hands-on museum/exhibit. It has the
world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope. We learned that a lot of people who suffer
from electromagnetic hypersensitivity have move to this area for relief of
their symptoms.
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| Our campsite in Trout Pond Campground - one of our favorites |
We first stayed in the Trout Pond Campground, in the George
Washington National Forest, near Lost City, WV.
What a beautiful campground and truly way
out in the middle of nowhere!
We found
out that we might be able to get enough cell service for texting if we hiked up
a “short” trail behind one of the nearby campsites to the overlook at the top
of the “hill”, so of course, up we went.
Well, the trail ended up being a mile almost straight up - 700
feet.
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| Jean resting after our "short" hike to the summit |
We got spotty texting, enough to
let our families know that we were alright, and that we still had no cell
reception and would try to find a way to keep in touch. Needless to say, we didn’t attempt that hike
again!"
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| beautiful butterflies on the Trout Pond Lake Trail |
Our next stop here was a “destination stop” for us as it was
here that Jerome’s sister, Eileen and cousin, Theresa, joined us for the next
four days.
We stayed the first two
nights in Seneca State Forest Campground in the Monongahela National Forest,
near Dunsmore, WV.
It’s a gorgeous,
tiny campground tucked between hillsides, along a creek, without electricity
and with only a hand pump for water.
We
definitely couldn’t have gotten a larger rig in here as we barely finagled our
rig into our spot.
Once again, we had a
scary start as we got our truck stuck while maneuvering into our camp
spot.
We had to shovel some loose stones
under and around our back truck tires to stop them from spinning and save
ourselves from needing help to get un-stuck in the soft ground.
Egads!
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| Our beautiful campsite in Seneca State Forest Campground - you can see our truck tracks where we got stuck! | |
We used this campground as our base to see the Green Bank Observatory and to ride our bikes on the Greenbrier Trail from Clover Lick to Marlinton, a
15 mile ride.
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| Theresa, Eileen, Jerome, & Jean - starting out on our Greenbrier River Trail ride |
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| Jerome & Jean - the tressle just after the tunnel |
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| gorgeous view of the Greenbriar River from the tressel |
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| mamma and her fawns crossed the trail in front of us and then crossed the river |
We then moved to Watoga State Park, near Marlinton, with
plans to ride another stretch of the trail the next day, this time a 13 mile
ride.
The day we got there, as soon as
we set up camp, Jean left to take a tour of the nearby Pearl S. Buck Homestead
while Theresa and Eileen went on a “short” hike up to another lookout.
Jean’s 45 minute tour of the homestead
turned into a 2 hour tour but she said it was well worth it. Theresa and Eileen’s
hike ended up being another of those mile-straight-up hikes, but they too said
it was worth it.
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| Pearl S. Buck Birthplace & Museum |
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| just incase you aren't familiar with Pearl S. Buck |
The next morning it
was pouring down rain but we packed up our rain gear and headed out to spot our
vehicles and start our ride. We finally
had to admit that it was raining too hard and convince Eileen that we had to
give up on our biking plans. Fortunately
for Jean, this gave her a chance to admit that she was miserable and needed to
make to drive into Marlinton to seek medical help. With meds in hand and relief in sight for
Jean, we headed back to the campground
just in time to eat some lunch and still get Eileen and Theresa on the trail
for a shorter, 5 mile ride, when there was a short break in the clouds. With all the craziness at the end of the
visit, we still all agreed that we had had a fabulous time and are looking
forward to the next time we can meet up again…. maybe to ride the Virginia
Creeper next time?!?!
After 2 weeks of spotty to no communication with our
families, we looked forward to moving on and getting somewhere with cell
service and yes, even TV for a change!
Onward towards the heat and the southern states…….
We hope all is well with you and yours and as always, we
hope you have enjoyed our blog. ‘Until
next time, Jerome & Jean (and Carly, too)
