Blackwater Falls
John Denver’s song, “Country Road”, always pops in my head whenever I think of West Virginia. As we crossed over the state line I broke out in song. The winding country roads I love, however, bring my lovely wife headaches (unless she is pregnant, so after today,we know for sure she is not currently). We made it to Blackwater Falls State Park, nonetheless and found the falls breathtaking. Though it is disappointing that yet another beautiful place is not very accessible. We would have loved to rappel off the waterfall into the pool below! After the long staircase hike, we found our campground, and the site we chose has a groundhog close by. Elijah was the first to see it. He said, “Mommy – bear.” We were also told there have been bears around the campgrounds of late; so, we are on the lookout. We already saw a doe and a buck across the way wandering through the woody area.
We were told West Virginia is experiencing record high temperatures and a drought. Their record high temperatures are still the coolest weather we have been in so far, so we are really enjoying their heat. We even put the little ones in their warmer pajamas with the expectation that the night will get even cooler.
The drought has dried up the rivers which we were hoping to kayak, so instead we checked out a small dam that had water flowing over it. The 30ft dam looked doable, so I waded into the pool below to verify the depth. It was only about a foot deep. This meant that it was not very safe as we would hit the bottom, so we changed our adventure to a local petting zoo. The kids loved petting the pigs, chickens, bunnies, pony, calf, and albaca. After that the family went for a paddle boat ride on the lake. We asked if we could swim in the lake and the startled rental guy said absolutely no swimming. So, our 30min ride was more than enough as it was pretty hard keeping the kids from jumping off the boat to play in the calling water.
[Helpful Hint: When you have a fear, give it a name and talk about it. The campground showers often have other residents that we must share them with. The kids get a kick out of the frogs and some of the cooler looking insects. The spiders however were a little scary to them. So, the last time we were in the shower I had them name the different spiders that were sharing our shower with us. We had Wilber and Charlotte, who once they had names became a part of our story and the kids delighted in their company.]
The Petting Zoo
Paddle Boat Time
