June 8, 2022 – July 9, 2022
The jet lag from Hawaii was keeping me up late at night, but I can’t complain since it’s the first time coming back from Hawaii that I didn’t have to worry about getting up for work and battling the jet lag during the working day, it sure is a nice change!
We had some fun things planned over the next month that I was pretty excited for as we left Lynne’s in South Carolina to make our way north. We stayed a quick night in North Carolina and then headed towards Virginia. Our first stop in Virginia was Newport News. We didn’t have much planned at this stop but realized we were close to Jamestown so headed there for a tour. It was very interesting to see the first permanent English settlement in North America. They had several archaeological digs happening on site, and it was interesting to see and realize they were still digging up things from the past. That night as we were eating dinner at camp, I saw a small flash of light, I looked over to Lee and said is that a firefly? Sure enough it was and then there were more little flashes of light. I have never seen a firefly and it’s something I’ve wanted to see for a long time, I was so excited to finally see them! What a cool bug and phenomenon!
After leaving Newport News we made our way to Shenandoah National Park where we would spend the next four nights. Shenandoah was a beautiful forest and we hiked, relaxed, enjoyed the scenery and even had a good thunderstorm one night. We stayed at three different campgrounds during our stay, one in the south, one in the middle and one in the north. We both agreed that Shenandoah was beautiful, but like Great Smoky Mountain NP neither really has the wow factor that a lot of the parks in the west have. I will say if I had to pick one of the two to visit I would pick Shenandoah over the Smoky Mountains.
We were then off to Washington DC where my BFF Andrea was going to meet us for a few days! We made a short stop to work out at an Anytime Fitness and then another stop in Baltimore where Lee had an appointment with a dry eye specialist to see if he could get some relief from the discomfort he’s been experiencing lately with his eyes (he seems optimistic that the treatment may be working). While he was at the doctor’s I was able to get our laundry done at a laundromat just down the street.
We got to our AirBnb with enough time for me to shower and then get to Ronald Reagan airport to pick up Andrea! It was so nice to see her and I was excited to spend a few days with her site seeing. Our first day we headed to the Washington Mall downtown to see if we could get same day tickets to the Holocaust Museum. We were in luck and got tickets for later that afternoon. We then decided to go get lunch and walk over and see the White House. It was a scorcher of a day and we were glad when our time came to get into the air conditioning of the museum which is an excellent yet somber museum. Later that night we headed to dinner to a restaurant close by the Airbnb where they happened to have karaoke. Lee tried to get me to perform but I wasn’t feeling it. There were some who sang that made for a somewhat painful dinner.
The following day, Lee got up early and ran around the Mall while Andrea and I took our time getting ready and then headed out for more site seeing. We started in Georgetown, had some lunch and then walked to the Lincoln Memorial and the Vietnam Vet memorial. Again the temps were high, 95 degrees and humid, making it feel even warmer. We were pretty tired by the time we got back to the Airbnb that we decided to order in dinner that night and watch a movie.
Our last full day in DC we went out to Mount Vernon. We had a nice time visiting the mansion and the grounds and had a nice lunch at the onsite restaurant. The next day I dropped Andrea off at the airport and headed back to the Airbnb to pack up and head to Maryland. I had a great time seeing Andrea and you realize one of the hard things about traveling is missing friends and family. We always love when we get to see our friends and family and especially when they come and join us on some our adventures.
We decided to go to the seashore in Maryland. Along the way we stopped and got some delicious produce at a farm stand and some nice scallops at a seafood market (we had a great dinner that first night). Assateague National Seashore and State park were a lot of fun. They have herds of wild horses that roam the park and the campgrounds. We had several visit us in camp and saw many along the roads when we road our bikes. There was a great bike path in the area and the beach was nice as well, if not just a wee bit chilly for me. Lee spent a few hours in the cold water paddling one late afternoon and I sat on the beach in my sweatshirt cheering him on. One of the evenings we were there we went to a restaurant that served Maryland blue crabs. I’m not a big crab lover, but these were good and the waitress also showed us a great way to crack, peel and eat them.
On Tuesday (the 21st) while we were at Assateague, I got a text from my brother asking us where we were going to be that Saturday. I told him we were going to be in Delaware, headed towards Virginia. He asked if we wanted to meet up with him and his wife to go to the Midnight Oil concert in DC. We said sure why not, we weren’t planning on staying that far from DC that Saturday night anyways so the timing was perfect and as I mentioned before we love having our friends and family join us on our travels! But in the meantime we had some exploring to do in Delaware.
We left Maryland on the 23rd and headed to Delaware Seashore State park. We both ran on the beach that evening (which was incredibly hard since the sand was so soft) and I saw what I thought were dead horseshoe crabs on my run. After running we walked back to check them out and sure enough they were horseshoe crabs and they were quite large. They are an interesting looking animal to say the least.
The next day we headed to a Harvest Host in Dover that was an aquaponics farm. The farm is owned by a husband and wife who were former school teachers. We’ve met a few people now that are tired of the low pay and stress of the American education system, and have moved on to other things, which is quite sad and worrisome for the future generation.
When we got there we got to tour the operation. Before we went into the greenhouse we had to wash our shoes on a soapy mat and wash our hands. This was to keep any bacteria from coming into the greenhouse. We were greeted with large barrels of tilapia fish and she walked us through the process of growing the fish, filtering the water for the lettuce and how they harvest and sell the fish. It was very interesting. We even got to feed the fish which surprised me since they were very aggressive and splashing everywhere. We then got to see the lettuce and she picked a head for us to eat while we continued the tour (it was very good). It was an absolutely fascinating tour and I thoroughly enjoyed it. After the tour we walked around their cute farm, checked out the old school bus they use for their chickens and watched their funny donkeys. It was a very good evening! I also learned that I’m a natural “donkey whisperer”, as the donkeys would come to me when I called them… 😊 (this last sentence is a little addition from Lee)
The next day we needed to start making our way to DC to meet Grant and Viviana. We met up at the hotel we were all staying at that afternoon and headed to dinner and then the concert. The concert was really good and even though it was a really quick visit (they flew out at 5AM the next morning), I’m glad we were able to make it work!
We had a little longer drive the next day to make it to Lewisburg, West Virginia which is where we were going to do our first bike packing trip. As we drove into West Virginia I couldn’t believe how beautiful and “quaint” it was. If it weren’t for the fact that it’s somewhat of a backwards state, I could see living there.
We found another Harvest Host for our first night that was a cattle farm at the top of a “mountain”. The views were incredible and we purchased some of their beef and grilled up some steaks that night. We had a great nights sleep which got us ready for our next adventure.
The next morning, we met up with a man named Tracy who was our shuttle driver to take us from Caldwell, WV to Cass, WV where we would start our bikepacking trip on the Greenbrier River Trail (a 78 mile Rails to Trail path). Tracy was a teacher and born and raised in WV. He was a talker and took us by the Greenbrier Resort which was very impressive, told us about the area and overall a really nice man.
While we were on our way up to Cass a young man flagged us down, he had just gotten into a car accident and was looking for help (there was no cell service). His car was flipped upside down in the yard of a house with his mother still in it. She was bleeding but was conscious. He seemed hesitant to knock on the door of the house but Tracy told him to go do it. No one answered, so we said we would drive and see if we can find someone at another house with a landline. We drove up to a couple of houses and Tracy would honk his horn and not go up to the door, when we asked about it, he said people in West Virginia are the nicest people, but they are very suspicious and so he didn’t feel safe just knocking on a door. You always hate to stereo type, but those stereo types usually come from somewhere and I always thought of West Virginia being a little back woods.
We were never able to find someone home (or at least someone who would come to the door), so we gave up, there were several cars going the opposite way of where we were going and the direction the young man was going and closer to a town so we figured he would be able to get some help from people going the other way.
Tracy dropped us off at the trailhead in Cass and after a quick lunch at the local market we headed out for our 24 mile bike ride. It was a beautiful and well maintained trail and we had a nice time making our way to Marlinton, WV where we were staying for the night. We stayed at the Old Clark Inn and luckily found one restaurant open that evening for dinner (it was a pretty small town). The next day was a long one. 54 miles on a mountain bike! We again enjoyed our ride and the scenery but our rear ends were pretty sore by the time we made it back to the van. Overall it was a great experience and something we plan on doing more of!
We had a day in between our bike packing trip and our next big adventure and we spent part of that day paddling on Summerville Lake. It was such a pretty lake with a few waterfalls, and Lee found some climbing routes while we were paddling and we also watched some people with a slack line over the water showing off their skills. Just a really nice lake for paddling.
We made our way to Ace Adventure Resort after paddling, driving through some very narrow roads with homes extremely close to the road. We checked in and got ready for our overnight white water trip starting the next morning. At check in we met a family from Georgia that would be paddling with us. It was fun to get to know them and paddle with them. We were a little unsure of what the trip had in store for us as the description on the website was somewhat vague so we were pleased to find out the first day we got our own “duckies” to paddle in the class I & II rapids. We had a great time paddling and swimming when the water was calm. We had a great lunch on one of the beaches as we made our way to camp for the night.
Camp had several platforms that we could use to set up our tents. After setting up we made our way to a waterfall close by to clean up for the night. We had a great steak dinner and met the other people who would be joining us the next night for our rafting day. When it started to get dark the fireflies came out in force. It was such a cool site, there were so many and with the darker skies it made it even more of a show.
The next day we got in the big rafts for a day of class III – V rapids, we shared a raft with three women from Pennsylvania and off we went with our guide Kelly. We had so much fun hitting the bigger rapids and again jumping out and swimming when the water was flat. When it was getting time for lunch the clouds started rolling in and we made it to our lunch spot that luckily had some covered pavilions just as the storm came in. The thunder was LOUD and the rain dumped down but our guides setup lunch and by the time we were done eating it was over and we were on our way for the last half of the day.
The rapids after lunch got more exciting and we even did a little surfing in the raft. We also got out at a jumping rock and I was able to climb up and jump off (it felt higher than I thought it was after I jumped). All in all the trip was so much fun, we would love to do it again. We definitely have West Virginia on our list of places we want to come back to, we had a great time!
The next morning was Lee’s birthday and we woke up to rain which squashed our mountain bike plans so we decided it was time to head to Kentucky. Lee wanted to go climbing at a gym in Lexington so we made our way there and had fun climbing although it was hard since our climbing has been so sporadic. We then went to an inn we had booked in Versailles, just outside of Lexington. We got there and it was a beautiful old home that the owners had just recently purchased and had remodeled. Our room was beautiful and there was only one other couple staying there. The owners were away for the evening so it was very quiet.
We showered and walked to a local restaurant for dinner and then when we got back to the inn we looked around and discovered a ton of water in the dining area which was right below our shower. We called the owners to let them know and soon they were there to clean up. We talked to them briefly, the wife was another former educator fed up with the profession and decided to pursue her dream of owning an inn. If we are ever back in Lexington we would definitely stay there again.
Our main destination in Kentucky was Mammoth Cave National Park. It was very hot that day and the cave tour was welcome relief. We’ve been on quite a few cave tours since we’ve started traveling and this one didn’t have the pizazz as others but it was quite large and had some interesting history. After the cave tour we went to the campground and silly us decided to workout in the heat. We were both drenched when we got back to the van and a cold shower didn’t even help to cool us down. Luckily the night got cool enough that we were able to sleep.
On to Missouri. We knew Missouri was going to be very hot so we booked hotels for our stay. As we were driving to Missouri we passed into Illinois shortly and drove through what was a modern ghost town, Cairo, IL. The closed gas station had gas listed for about $2 a gallon, much cheaper than the close to $5 we’ve been paying and everything was boarded up and just eerie feeling. It’s times like this, passing through a deserted town that I love having internet access to learn about why it’s a ghost town (I won’t bore you with it, but you can always look it up).
We got to our Bed and Breakfast, The Old Caledonia Inn, in Caledonia, MO. It was a cute historic mansion ran by a same sex couple that were a hoot to visit with. They made us a delicious dinner and breakfast the next morning was fantastic as well. We spent a few hours visiting with the owners over breakfast and then we were on our way to Johnson Shut-Ins State Park a little ways from the inn. It was a cool swimming hole (or natural water park as they like to advertise) and it was very refreshing on the 95 degree day.
We then made our way to St Louis (staying at a Residence Inn) where we stayed for a few days. We visited the Gateway Arch which was more impressive than I thought it would be, we even crawled into the small pods that took us to the top. Being that it was so hot we mostly stayed indoors and hit up a climbing gym which was in an old power plant and got massages.
After Missouri we went to Illinois for a couple of days. We stopped in Springfield, IL to see the Lincoln Library and Museum and then stayed in Shelbyville and paddled on the lake. We then went to Bloomington, Indiana, again stayed at a lake and paddled and then a quick drive through of Indianapolis where we had lunch on the canal downtown. Can’t say that either state had much appeal to us except to see lots of corn and soybeans 😂!
