Nick slept soundly through the night. I slept ok until about 1 when the elevator alarm went off for several minutes. Nick of course slept through that racket. But overall, for a night in a hotel, it was an ok night of sleep. I got up and got ready about 6 and then got Nick up. We headed downstairs to breakfast around 7. I’ve stayed in this Hampton Inn on a few occasions when we have needed to break up the drive to State College, PA, and it continues to have a) the nicest breakfast area of any Hampton Inn I’ve stayed in and b) the best breakfast variety of any Hampton Inn I’ve stayed in. Nick hasn’t been to this one before and he was impressed.
Breakfast consumed, we headed back to the room where we finished packing and then headed out shortly before 8. Checkout was quick, we loaded the car up, programmed the GPS to our first stop, and hit the road!
The drive was surprisingly easy this morning. We stayed on 84 a bit longer and then we were on an assortment of different highways in NY, complete with the Saw Mill Parkway. At this hour, the parkway was a beautiful drive. Eventually we crossed the Hudson on the Tappan Zee Bridge, which is now named after that embarrassed governor they had a couple years ago, and then a bit later cruised into NJ. We arrived at our first stop of the day about 9:15.
Where was our first stop? A liquor store in Boonton, NJ. Why? Well…my dad still travels extensively for work, and says this liquor store is his favorite in the country. I’ve been there before, but Nick hasn’t, so since it was kind of on the route, it was time to introduce him.
We picked up a few goodies that we haven’t seen at home, and hopped back in the car. Our next official stop was in Pennsylvania, but I made sure to stop for gas before we exited NJ. Gas is SO MUCH cheaper in NJ than in Pennsylvania. Nick was thoroughly confused when he went to get out of the car to pump gas (I’m fully capable but I think he’s embarrassed to sit in the car as a guy and have me pump my own gas, so he always gets out to pump), and I told him he’s not allowed to. NJ is still full service only. So he headed for the convenience store, re-emerging as the fueling finished, with lots of snacks, raving about what a great convenience store it was. Yup…Pilot truck stops outside of New England are top notch!
On the way to our next stop, we had a classic Pennsylvania experience. There’s really no better state for town names. We passed Shartlesville. Named because there’s nothing more startling than a shart?
Next up? Sikafus Sheepskin in Pennsylvania about an hour and 20 minutes from the Boonton Liquor Outlet. My dad has been talking up (and showing off) this place for years. He buys his (non sheepskin) work boots there, and sends my sister there to buy slippers for Christmas gifts. Neither Nick nor I had been here yet. The way he talks about this place, I imagined a large store.
Actually, it’s located in an old and small convenience store. We double checked Google to make sure we were at the right place! On the plus side, it took less time than I imagined to explore. It was quite interesting for sure. It is wall to wall stuff in there. If we didn’t have a dog so attracted to shoes, I might have gotten myself some new slippers. But we do, so I didn’t. We both left empty handed, and chuckling about the experience.
From here we continued on for about another hour along I-78, and then I-81. Shortly after picking up 81, we stopped for lunch at Chick-fil-A in Carlisle, PA. We don’t have these at home, but we know the food is excellent, the service is quick, and the bathrooms are clean.
We went in to order our chicken tender and nugget meals and lemonades (standard for me, frosted for him). Then we sat back to watch the thing of beauty that is a Chick-fil-A drive-through. They seriously have more people working their drive-through than most of our local fast food places have working in the entire restaurant! Our minds were blown. Our food was delivered and was delicious.
Food consumed, we got back on the road to tackle the final 340 miles of driving today…210 of which were still on I-81. We encountered some heavy rain for the 10 miles we were in Maryland and somewhat lighter rain as we passed through a narrow strip of West Virginia. But overall, it was a pretty easy drive and we only had to stop once more for fuel in Virginia, before we made it to our next stop…dinner. Nick slept most of the drive.
For dinner we stopped at Hog Wild, a barbecue place outside of Lewisburg, WV. We both got variations of fries, nacho cheese and meat. The food was decent, but nothing special. It did the trick though and provided a good stopping point with food we were happy with.
Dinner eaten, we settled in for the last hour of the trip. This stretch of I-65 through West Virginia was beautiful, with minimal traffic, and the scenery gave us a slight preview of what we would experience tomorrow.
When we reached our destination for the next two nights of Beckley, West Virginia, it was easy enough to find our hotel, the Courtyard. Beckley was about what I was expecting from research…full of hotel and restaurant chains, many of which haven’t existed in NH in years, if ever. Beckley is where two major interstates come together, so it’s been a natural stopping point for travelers for quite some time. It’s not scenic, but it gets the job done.
So why Beckley? Access to New River Gorge National Park. Being the newest national park, lodging in Fayetteville, where the park is sort of headquartered is still pretty limited. Beckley was the next best option in terms of location and options.
We grabbed our stuff and headed inside to check in. The lady at the check in desk excitedly informed me that we were “in a nice balcony room on the 4th floor”. Now, there are a lot of places where that would be exciting. Beckley, WV, where every view is a view of the parking lot and it was currently in the 40s? Not so much.
It was a nice room though. The bones of the hotel were older, but they had clearly fairly recently fully renovated the rooms and lobby. The room was clean and in pretty good shape. A good use of a free night certificate and a few Marriott points.
We settled in and I crashed pretty quickly. It had been approximately 600 miles of driving today, so it had been a long day!
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