Saturday we drove to Audra State Park. I asked Michael if there was anywhere he wanted to go, so he grabbed the WV guide books and found Audra State Park.
The drive was lovely, and the park itself was a pleasant surprise.
IMPORTANT NOTE: I don’t like taking picture of people I don’t know. (Hell, I generally don’t like taking pictures of people I DO know.) The reason there are so few pictures of the river is because it was FULL of people, hanging out and enjoying the cool water and lying on the rocks sunbathing.
Went to Coopers Rock State Forest yesterday, and hiked to Henry Clay Iron Furnace then onto Rock City and then back.
Which is how I got those 100 flights of stairs yesterday. :)
Lots of interesting things, but the light was kinda meh.
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The obligatory picture with the Mountaineer
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As I mentioned yesterday, the walk may have been a mistake, but it was a lovely walk.
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I’d feel bad about never having been to the WV Botanic Garden before, except it’s relatively new.
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The weather cleared, so we took a walk on the rail trail today.
These are at and around the new construction on Beechurst. (Here’s a shot from last April.)
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We also walked around campus Sunday afternoon. As I said, it was a gorgeous day.
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Saturday we were in Charleston for our niece’s birthday, but since the “kid’s party” was in the early afternoon, we spent time with Michael’s mother, and wandered around a bit beforehand. Michael’s mom lives quite near the Coal River, so we went to the Big Falls area for a bit, and then to the Little Falls area.
So the endpoint for our travel was Berkley Springs.
The center of Berkeley Springs are the springs that bubble up from the ground. The became a spa that was visited regularly by George Washington. In fact, there’s a little stone tub labeled “George Washington’s Bath”.
We again had beautiful weather, and since the Eastern Panhandle is slightly warmer than us, there was still plenty of leaf color.
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Prickett Fort Cemetery is a private cemetery located in Prickett’s Fort State Park. It was established in the late 1700s, and contains markers that in some cases are nothing more than simple stones.
There were “newer” stones that had obviously replaced older worn stones, but even many of the stones from the early 1900s are wearing and will soon be illegible.
Very humbling to think that even the stone markers we leave as our memorials eventually return to nothing more than stone, with our passing and history erased.
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Prickett’s Fort State Park was only about 15 minutes from our house when I was a teenager and young adult. Yet I don’t ever remember going there.
Of course, this isn’t as illogical as it sounds. The son of friends of my parents was killed there, struck by a train, when I was eight or nine years old. (Their daughter is the same age as me, and the memories of the day of the funeral are still sharp.) It just never seemed like a fun place to go.
But, today I decided it was time to leave the past in the past, so we went. It was a little odd, but I’m glad I finally decided to let myself get past it.
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