Wild, Wonderful West Virginia

A Family Staycation

By Bill Woodrum

The year 2020 was supposed to be a year of great adventure for my family. It happened to be the singular year where several life events collided, including my 25th wedding anniversary with my wife, Lori; my 50th birthday; my son, Alex, turning 18; and his graduation from high school. Instead of parceling out small celebrations and purchases, we discussed and decided upon a large, encompassing visit to Ireland to bring the variety of our milestones together into one wonderful trip abroad in July.

For added excitement, friends of ours were also celebrating similar events, and we decided to go together: seven people, 10 days and stops all throughout Ireland. The planning went on for months starting in late 2019. We had purchased flights, booked rooms—including hotels, castles and Airbnbs—rented cars and everything else you can imagine. There were spreadsheets and shared documents in the cloud. We had our own Facebook Messenger group to help us document ideas for stops and visits. It became a real labor of love.

When the news of the coronavirus started to emerge in February 2020, friends were making me aware that this wasn’t just the flu. There was discussion of some quarantining and wearing masks. Nevertheless, we proceeded undaunted with our planning. More pubs got put on the list, and we added the Ring of Kerry as a destination. By April, it was clear that this wasn’t just another flu and widespread quarantines at home and abroad would be the new normal. By the beginning of May, our resolve began to crack, and in early June, we cancelled the trip. We did, unexpectedly, receive full refunds from all bookings. This left us with a decision to make as to where we would be taking our break and celebrating our milestones.

The predictions for June and July continued to be grave outside of West Virginia. High community transmission rates and overall gloomy projections snuffed out the possibility of travel. At that time, we decided to do a West Virginia staycation and take our son to parts of the state he hadn’t visited before. As a native West Virginian and as part of my job at the Robert C. Byrd Institute, I get to drive all over the state for work. Usually, though, my family has other commitments that keep them from enjoying these trips with me. This seemed like a great opportunity to show Lori and Alex parts of our state I love most.

We settled on a visit to the Potomac Highlands region with a basecamp in Thomas, WV. It was a place my wife had always wanted to visit and one of my favorite little West Virginia towns, so we picked it as home base. A few quick searches showed some availability on Airbnbs, and we wound up renting a house for the week on top of a hill overlooking the town. It was a great selection, and, by total coincidence, it turned out the homeowner had a nephew who had just graduated with my son.

While there were social limitations at many businesses, we had an amazing week hiking the hills and hollows of the region. For our first day trip, we stayed relatively close to Davis and Thomas and explored the areas in and around these cozy towns. Of course, the first stop was a hike on Blackwater Falls Canyon Trail. Although there were dozens of people around, everyone took the social distancing seriously. Hitting all the high points, we hiked down the boardwalk to the lower viewing decks of the eponymous falls and proceeded to the other notable locales such as Elakala Falls, Lindy Point and the Pendleton Point Overlook. That afternoon, we discovered a small rail trail that led from Thomas through Davis and out into the forest all the way to Douglas Falls. We had one of our most relaxing afternoons studying the old coke furnaces that lay along the trail, building stone cairns and skipping rocks in the North Fork of the Blackwater River and hiking out to the here to fore unknown falls. They were beautiful, and we were nearly alone during our first discovery of them. There is a great canopy of trees that shelters the trail near the falls, and it made for a lovely long, flat walk with the sounds of the surging stream beside us. I also discovered another part of the history of the region as I found some old railway braces submerged in the soil and fished them out to bring home as a memory of the day. We wrapped up with a delicious curbside pick-up meal from Sirianni’s Café and returned to our house in Thomas for the evening.

The next day we adventured more abroad and headed out to Seneca Rocks. It was a gorgeous day, and there were only a handful of people around. Lori and Alex climbed all the way to the summit and got to see the amazing views from the promontory. After eating a packed lunch, we enjoyed a visit to Smokehole Cavern to learn the unique history of that geological formation and how it had been used by Native Americans and early settlers as shelter and a reliable source of clean water. Even though the day was sunny and hot, we were glad we had packed jackets by the time we made it back to the far reaches of the cave where it stays 56 degrees all year. The stalagmite and stalactite formations were incredible and literally numbered in the thousands.

Our next day brought driving and hiking through Cranberry Glades. This gorgeous West Virginia scenery was new to the whole family, as I had never been inside the bogs. We drove the somewhat interesting and winding roads all the way up into the park and randomly set off on a trail. The tree canopy was quite thick and made for an enjoyable and leisurely walk. We found the path really well defined and perfect for an afternoon trek. We walked out a couple miles and back and made an enjoyable afternoon of it. We topped the evening off with dinner from Canaan Valley BBQ, which had set up an outdoor space and served meals on-site. It was another leisurely and relaxing day.

We spent some time in Thomas the next day as businesses were open more during the mid-week through the weekend. There are basically two streets in Thomas, an upper street heading west and the lower street heading east. We spent most of our time on the lower street due to ongoing construction on some of the shops on the upper street. There were several small shops that had been quite well integrated into the historic downtown. Some favorites included Thomasyard, Riverfront Antiques and Tip Top Coffee Shop. We had lunch at The Purple Fiddle and continued to meander around town for a few more hours.

On Friday of our vacation week, we woke up and headed home. While Ireland still awaits us someday, all in all we could not have asked for a more idyllic, albeit too short, journey. It was only a few short weeks later my son left for his freshman year at Marshall University. Our West Virginia staycation gave us quiet time as a family we wouldn’t have had during a grandiose European vacation to reflect on our blessings and cherish a great time together. It will forever be a treasured memory for our family.