Pennsylvania and the Virginias 2021:
Day 1 - West Virginia

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Pennsylvania and Virginias 2021: [Day 1 - West Virginia] [Day 2 - Virginia] [Day 3 - Pennsylvania] [Day 4 - Ohio] [Day 5 - Heading Home]

	Monday, April 5, 2021: Let's hit the road!
	Five minutes from our RV storage facility, we spotted our first Maersk of the trip, but it's not the container, it's the truck bed.
	A couple of hours later, we were passing Clarksville, ...
	... on our way across the border to Kentucky.
	There's Louisville!
	This pretty soccer arena is the Lynn Family Stadium.
	Oooh, cool stone mini-tunnels!
	We were reminder near each exit that we were near the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. One of the signs notified us that Buffalo Trace Distillery is a National Historic Landmark.
	For lunch, we found a local chain, as per our road trip rules. The lucky recipient of our Hoosier money was Cook Out.
	Debbie ordered a chicken sandwich with the basic toppings, while Tom opted for a burger Steak Style, with A1 sauce. Of course, we had to have onions rings too.
	Our first point of interest was Frankfurt, the capital of Kentucky. You drive under this bridge and then suddenly, the capitol building is right in front of you.
	We passed this huge clock ...
	... on our way to get a great photo of the capitol building.
	Here is the Capitol Rose Garden, right across the street.
	The governor's mansion was just around the corner.
	This historical marker tells all about it.
	A boulevard filled with tulips leads up to ...
	... the front of the capitol.
	We crossed the Capital Bridge, built in 1937, on our way out of town.
	We found ourselves on the Purple Heart Trail once again, becoming more convinced that this trail runs through every major highway in the country. A similar sign a while later looked just like this but had mixed-case text instead. Huh.
	This was Kentucky horse country, and we passed numerous horse ranches.
	The sign for this one identified it as the Kentucky Thoroughbred Retirement Farm. Aw, that's sweet.
	We passed through Daniel Boone National Forest but didn't get a picture of the sign.
	We crossed Big Sandy River at the border.
	Welcome to West Virginia - Wild and Wonderful
	The Ohio River was to our left, and that's the state of Ohio right across the river.
	Each little valley leading back into the hills was absolutely charming.
	We stopped at a rest area that noted that this was the Blue Star Memorial Highway.
	We made a slight detour to Barboursville to get this picture of a pink elephant.
	Next, we drove over the Kanawha River to Charleston ...
	... where we got yet another picture of its beautiful golden state capitol.
	We drove along the West Virginia Turnpike where we used one of our collection of toll transponders.
	Signs advertised the Tamarack Marketplace all along the way.
	Water seeped down the exposed rock, creating a mosaic of different colors.
	Eventually, we made it to Tamarack Marketplace but decided to wait until the next day to stop. (Spoiler: It's closed on Tuesdays so that didn't work out.)
	The last 45 minutes of our drive to our campground was very scenic. West Virginia seems to have pretty creeks and rivers running along every road.
	We reached the sign for Twin Falls Resort State Park but still had another 13 minutes of driving to go.
	Consecutive signs along the winding road leading up the mountain offered up this little poem: "From Audra to Watoga Our state parks share Wonderful scenery Deserving special care West Virginia Make it shine"
	More driving uphill, ...
	... and finally, we reached the campground at the very top of the ridge. The office was closed but a note on the door directed us to call to check in.
	We loved our campsite. It had a flat paved pad, a large trash can in a discreet wooden box, and a huge wooden deck.
	This is the pretty view from our rig, ...
	... and here's a better look at the deck.
	With a deck this great, we headed outside to enjoy some refreshments, ...
	... then followed that up a little later with all of the leftovers from our fridge at home: spaghetti, enchiladas, and ribs. We do cook dinners at home but you wouldn't know it from this display.
	There was only one other campground occupied around us. This couple had completely moved in for the week and had an entire living room of furniture unloaded for the two of them.
	A large, clean, modern restroom was located nearby, which was very convenient.
	When Tom was walking back from it, he noticed what appeared to be a cemetery off to the right, ...
	... so we decided to head over to see it. It's in the center of this picture.
	Here's the entire thing. The arch over the entrance read Jenkins Cemetery.
	A row of fairly recent headstones from the 30 years or so were lined up on the front row. They all appeared to belong to a family of four Jenkins siblings and their father.
	Further back, there were very, very old headstones.
	Charles Roach's headstone from 1940 was still legible, ...
	... but the handful of others were not. Old artificial flowers had been there so long that all the color had faded.
	It was a nice walk but with the sun going down, it was getting chilly, so we headed back to The Ocho.
	As is typical for owning an RV, something malfunctioned every day of the trip, and today's error was that our coach software needed to be updated. It's handy to travel with an IT guy. Day 2 >