April 2023: A National Parks and Bourbon Road Trip: Day 3

Day 3: Sunday April 23, 2023

No surprise but I was awake pretty early. And I was quickly very AWAKE. I woke up to a text that 90% of the month’s data allowance on the cell phone plan my dad, sister and I share had already been used with 23 days still left in the billing cycle. First off…WTF. Second…I’m screwed because I need Google Maps just about daily for the next week. Oh, and my phone isn’t allowing me to connect to the hotel wifi…

I started playing around and found app data usage. Somehow Rakuten had decided to use 14 gigs of data “in the background”. I shut down its background data usage opportunity and then I texted dad and Laura that the problem had been found, before they could start blaming this on my facebook habits!

Problem solved, and actual data usage of Google Maps determined (not much…), I started getting ready for the day. This of course kicked off my coughing, so pretty soon Nick was awake and getting ready for the day too. The only perk of this never-ending cough…

Once we were ready, we headed basically across the street to breakfast at the Beckley Omelet Shoppe. This was a diner. Nick got some sort of biscuits and gravy casserole. I had fried eggs, a biscuit and hashbrowns. The food was good, the prices were pretty cheap, service was good and fast, and the place was clean. Not a bad breakfast option at all.

From here we headed over to Kroger, where, after a bit of searching, we found the premade sandwiches and stocked up for lunch for the day. We also explored a bit to see if there was any interesting soda or chips, and found that we were definitely in the south, when there was a distinct section of the chip aisle devoted to…pork rinds.

Lunch acquired, we headed back to the hotel to pack the cooler for the day and chill for a bit, waiting until our timing would be right so that maybe it’d be clear and sunny by the time we reached our last stop of the day. Right now, it was overcast (but with a reasonably high ceiling) and COLD. Like…in the 30s.

After a bit, we headed for the car. The ride up to the New River Gorge visitor center, our first stop, was about 25 minutes of easy driving. Just before the turn for the visitor center we drove over the big bridge, and Nick, who had been asleep the evening before as we crossed the southern end of the gorge, got his first impression of just how big this gorge was that we were about to see. We were both wowed, and we hadn’t seen anything yet!

After parking at the visitor center, we headed inside to buy the requisite ornament and suitcase sticker, get a map, and explore the visitor center. This visitor center had some great displays and some great views.

After taking in the views here, we headed outside and across the lawn to the viewpoint here. We took in the views from the top then headed down the 170ish stairs for some more views, me hoping I could make it back up the stairs without dying coughing, but also using this as a measurement of how I might do with Mammoth Cave on Tuesday.

The views were fantastic! And that bridge is massive! Two Statues of Liberty and one Washington Monument could be stacked underneath that bridge. This gorge is deep!

Views oohed and ahhed over, we climbed the stairs. I had a good coughing fit, but better than anticipated, especially given how cold it was, so I gained some confidence that we might still get to go to Mammoth Cave as scheduled this week.

We headed for the car where we were both grateful for heated seats and I was extra grateful for the heated steering wheel. It was NOT warm today. Did I really go south for this vacation?

Our next “stop” was Fayette Station Road. This is a mostly one-way road down into the gorge, and back out. It’s full of hairpin turns, narrow, and a bit dramatic. And in many places it really reminded me of driving some of the roads through Smoky Mountain National Park. It was a beautiful drive, with some good views. We were able to stop in a few places for some pictures, including down close to the river. If you’re in this section of West Virginia, drive the Fayette Station Road!

When we made it back up to bridge level, we headed back to the visitor center, where we picnicked in the car and then took advantage of flushing toilets and running water, before heading off to other stops. The sandwiches from Kroger were very good. The only food available in the park itself is maybe depending on the day, an ice cream stand, so you really have to supply your own lunch for this particular park.

Then we were off! Our next stop was actually a state park, Babcock State Park, which kind of sits in the middle of the national park land. Babcock State Park is home to a grist mill and waterfall, so it was definitely on my list, and it was literally on the route, with minimal effort to see some nice “scenery”.

Babcock was worth the stop. We were there for probably 20-30 minutes. This really is a nice spot.

 
Then we continued on to the next New River Gorge Visitor Center, associated with Sandstone Falls. It is actually miles from Sandstone Falls and has no views. It’s a very nice visitor center though, and has running water, on the route to Sandstone Falls.

From here, we set out on the wildest drive of the trip. This drive made the Kancamagus Highway’s hairpin turns in NH seem mild, and left me scratching my head at how fast these southern states will let one drive legally. Holy cow! There were some nice viewpoints though.

It’s about a 35 minute drive out to Sandstone Falls from the Sandstone visitor center. It’s actually only about 10 miles but…hairpin turns and mountain roads. There were moments when I wondered if I was being foolish taking the time to go out to this stop. Spoiler alert…it was not foolish to make the drive to the waterfall.

When we got there, we had quite the tease, and beautiful views right from the parking lot. We followed the half mile-ish boardwalk and were rewarded with views of different waterfalls from every angle. Loved it. Pretty sure Nick didn’t want to leave the end of the boardwalk, where we watched and listened to the waterfall for quite awhile. If you go to New River Gorge, take the time to go to Sandstone Falls!

From Sandstone Falls, we made our way back to I-64, where we took a nearby exit, and headed off to Grandview. Grandview was aptly named, and also provided us with the opportunity to chat with some folks from WV who had lived in Maine for a bit.

 
Grandview was a great stop to finish our New River Gorge tour with. From here it was off to dinner. It was a relatively quick (15 minute?) drive over to Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen. Cheddar’s is a chain, but one we hadn’t eaten at before and one I’d heard generally positive things about.

Cheddars was a good choice. First off the prices are unreal. Second, the servings were large, and third, the food and variety were very good. I had a $5.99 margarita the size of one that would cost $15 at our local Mexican restaurant. Nick had a painkiller and then their strawberry drink special. They brought out a round of complimentary honey butter croissants. We got the fried cheese curds for an appetizer, because we have a hard time passing up squeaky cheese, especially when it’s cheap. I had a fried chicken sandwich (I mean we are in the south, the fried food capital of the world) and Nick got a steak, because the same steak he got for $20 here would have been triple that at home. All told, we were happy with our meal, and our bill before tip was a solid $50 less than a comparable meal would have been in NH.

 
We then headed back to the hotel, where Nick enjoyed the balcony for a few minutes, we agreed on a departure time for the morning and I crashed hard.

So…my thoughts on New River Gorge National Park: I liked it. It’s different from most national parks, because it was originally a national preserve. So, in some ways it’s a bit disjointed. However, the highlight scenic areas really are highlights. For those of us not interested in river rafting, doing a bridge walk, or extensive hikes, slightly over half a day was the perfect amount of time to tackle this one. But there is a lot available for those more adventurous than we are. It’s very worth a visit if you’re in the area or if it doesn’t take much effort to be in the area.