A Crazy and Wet Day in West Virginia

 I think it may have rained most of the night.  I know that it rained all day!  We had a hot breakfast at the motel and then headed out to see New River Gorge National Park.  We are here and we decided not to let the rain keep us from seeing what we could see of the park.  A tire on the car put a delay on the sightseeing.  The passenger-side tire had indicated it was underinflated yesterday and we had to get air at a service station.  It was the same tire so we knew that it must have a slow leak.  We GPS'd a Firestone repair shop and headed out.  This is where the crazy kicks in.  The town of Beckley is small but filled with streets that go every which way, up and down hills, change names from corner to corner, and other things that caused us to get very frustrated.  Finally, we found a Goodyear repair shop and trusted our Firestone tire to them.  They found a nail in the tire and fixed it.  We must have picked it up in Cheryl's driveway or neighborhood.  Anyway, tire fixed and we headed north to the New River Gorge National Park.

New River Gorge NP is more than just the beautiful bridge.  

There are four different visitor's centers; Thurmond, an old railroad town; Nuttallburg, a coal mining town; a beautiful drive on the Fayette Station Road; and miles of trails.  Because of the continuous rain and delay in getting started this morning, we were only able to visit a small part of the park.  This is one park to which we would like to make a return visit.

We drove over the bridge to get to the Canyon Rim Visitor's Center.  It took us 45 seconds to drive over the bridge but before the bridge was built, it would take 45 minutes to drive down into the gorge, cross a small bridge across the New  River, and then drive up the other side of the gorge.  This bridge is one of the highest bridges in the US and one of the world's longest single-arch, steel span bridges.  It was completed in 1977.  It spans 3030 feet long and is 876 feet above the river.

This is a picture of the Fayette Station  Road.  This is the road that leads to the original small bridge which crosses the New River.

The New River Gorge Bridge.  It is the longest steel span in the Western Hemisphere and the third highest in the country.  On Bridge Day (third Saturday in October) the bridge is closed to traffic and open to BASE jumping, rappelling, and more.  It is the world' largest extreme sports event.

This picture was taken from the original bridge.  We brought the rain jackets at the Visitor's Center.  They were a great purchase because they helped keep the rain off of us and keep us warm.

Me on the old bridge.

This was a beautiful drive.  Parts of the road was designated one-way due to the narrowness of the road.

All the rain caused lots of small waterfalls along the way.

Another view of the bridge.  A private company takes groups of people to a place where you can walk underneath the bridge all the way across.  We had talked about doing that but decided not to because: (1) it was raining; (2) we had such a little amount of time; and (3) it cost $65 per person for the walk.  That is a little rich for our blood!!  I think Carol was glad because he doesn't like heights!

This is another bridge across the New River which crosses into Thurmond.  Thurmond was established in  in the late 1873 as a strategic position for developing a town.  Thurmond was the chief railroad center for the C and O Railroad.  The railroad carried not only passengers but coal from the surrounding coal fields and lumber from the forests of the gorge.  In 1920 75,000 passengers passed through Thurmond.  At it's peak, the town had two hotels, two banks. restaurants, clothing stores, movie theater, and many other businesses.

In the 1940's the railroad changed from steam to diesel locomotives.  This switch left many of the railyard workers unemployed and eventually, the town died.  No one lives there now, but once a year there is reunion of former residents and/or family members.  The Park Service began restoration of the building in Thurmond with the Train Depot and are working to restore other main street building.

Trails pulled through this building where coal and sand was loaded onto the train.  Sand was used to help with traction on the tracks.

One of the two banks once located there.

There are three tracks still operating in Thurmond.  Here a train was waiting for the green light to enter the town.

The rain caused the mountains to be covered with fog and clouds but I think it makes for a pretty picture.

Despite the rain, we really enjoyed the day.  The drives we took were off the beaten track through some beautiful parts of West Virginia.  We didn't get to see all we wanted to see but we don't have many miles to our next spot so we hope to make a couple of stops in the New River Gorge NP before leaving this area.

It is 7:00 p.m. and it is still raining!  We had supper at Long John's Silvers and are now all settled into our room for the evening.  It was a very nice day despite the rain.