The catwalk Road Trip
Tuesday, September 7, 2021
Departed the house at 10 am and drove to the storage lot to
pickup the RV. Today we drove about 300 miles to Fancy Gap
We stopped once for fuel and lunch at the Pilot station just
south of
Our overnight stop and the destination for today are both at the same exit. We stopped at the Fancy Gap Pottery because we got to it first. Millie shopped (successfully) for fabric to recover our foot stool in the RV and for a future foot stool I haven’t made yet. I found some glazed pottery bird baths and after much discussion between us, we settled on a cobalt blue one. It will replace the homemade one in the back yard.
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| Route from Myrtle Beach SC to Fancy Gap VA |
Just down the road from the pottery is our overnight stop, Fancy Gap KOA campground. It is without a doubt the nicest KOA we’ve ever stayed at. KOA franchised campgrounds have been around for a long time and some of them really show their age. This one has been rehabilitated and it is a first class park, we will stay here whenever we pass thru this area. Wi-Fi was good for a couple minutes and then slowed way down, everyone trying to stream Netflix this time of the evening I guess. I switched over to our jetpack, 4 bars 4G very fast. I think Millie is still on the campground WiFi and appears to be doing ok.
Weather is cooling down nicely here in the mountains; we will sleep with the windows open tonight. We left the RV hooked to the truck, we're just here overnight and will be on our way in the morning.
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| At the Fancy Gap Virginia KOA |
Wednesday September 8, 2021
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| Fancy Gap VA to New River Gorge Bridge WV |
We drove about 140 miles today from Fancy Gap
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| God's country |
We fueled up before leaving Fancy Gap and topped off again
when we neared our destination. We took on about 14 gallons each time. Our
campground is about 16 miles off of Hwy 19, the main road through the area.
This section of Route 16 is a winding narrow road that ran alongside the
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| View from our campsite at New River Campground |
It is not a resort campground by any measure but it has
hookups and is for the most part a transient campground, I did notice a couple
RV’s that appear to be here permanently or maybe for the season, but it doesn’t
feel like a trailer trash park. No cell service or WiFi. We did have a
waterfront site on the
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| New River CG in town of Gauley Bridge WV |
After setting up the RV we drove back out to the
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| walkway to bridge observation deck |
We didn’t go into the visitor’s center, mask required to go indoors and the museum is closed due to the china virus. We said no thanks; everything you can see in there can be viewed online.
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| The New River Gorge Bridge from the Visitor's center overlook |
On the way back to the campground we stopped at a waterfall we had seen from the road. It had little water flowing over it but it was very pretty, my photos will probably not do it justice.
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| Small waterfall alongside the road |
Forty some years ago (+/-) I rafted under the
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| View from the river |
My promotion from passenger to leader happened incredibly fast. As we crested the pool of water above the rapids, our guide had misjudged his course and smacked headlong into a boulder as big as a Volkswagen. The raft stopped instantly and catapulted the guide over all our heads and lucky for him, over the volksrock and into the churning waters some thirty feet downstream. The massive water flow of the river quickly spun the raft around the rock and down the rapids we went, sideways. All the other passengers who had looked back to see what the guide was doing, got the deer in the headlights look of fear when they realized he was gone.
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| driverless |
I would imagine people who do heroic things, used the same forethought as me. I didn’t think anything, I bolted up onto the platform that ran across the aft portion of the raft, grabbed the long steering oars and got the boat’s pointy end heading downstream. I instinctively knew how to steer the raft and we sped through the hundred yards of remaining rock obstacles, chutes of speeding water thru narrow rock openings and swirling jetty’s that will suck a man under.
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| What I thought I looked like! |
We slipped into the next pool of still water, the maelstrom of white churning water now behind us; I maneuvered the boat to our guide, who had ridden thru it all with just his life jacket.
At the time I was somewhat slighted by his demeanor after we pulled him back into the raft. I received no thanks, no good job, nothing; he just crowded me off the platform and took over his position as guide. Looking back, he was probably stunned, embarrassed or maybe in shock about the whole incident. Me, I was on top of the world and the memory of that brief moment of greatness remains with me all these years later.
Back to this trip, why have we driven 500 miles to come the
bridge that towers above the waters of the
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| One of the few level stretches of road in West Virginia! |
BTW; this bridge was
not any kind of modular construction; instead it was built piece by piece by
skilled tradesmen, American Ironworkers. It is an example of the
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| Skilled trades built America! |
At some point I probably would have brought Millie here to see it, but it moved to the top of the “places to see” roster when I discovered you can now traverse the catwalk underneath the road bed. The catwalk is two feet wide, 3000 feet in length and river is 852 feet below. When I read about this, I knew I just had to do it; my appointment is 11am tomorrow.
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| under the roadbed |
Thursday September 9, 2021
Millie has opted to stay at the RV while I walk the bridge. I arrived at the outfitter at 10:30, filled out the disclaimer; you know the one that says the outfitter is not responsible for anything that happens to you. Promptly at 11, our guide instructed us on how to get into our safety harnesses and how to use the lanyard and cable trolley. Next was a short bus ride to the base of the bridge, we then had to walk down a trail to get to the catwalk.
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| Our guide taking photos for the group |
Once we were all (there were 12 of us) hooked to the safety cable we started our stroll across the underside of the bridge. The walkway is 2 foot wide diamond plate steel and there is a handrail of steel (everything under the bridge is made of steel) about 40 inches high. We are connected to a safety cable that runs the entire 3000 foot length of the catwalk. There is lots of large structural steel around us but if you look straight down, it’s a long ways to earth.
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| Looking straight down at the river |
Our guide would periodically stop to give us some facts
about the bridge, its construction, and also the
The catwalk tour (2021) cost is $72 plus tax = $80. Is it worth the cost, it certainly was to me!
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| Looking towards the original river crossing bridge down in the gorge |
Bits and pieces: I spent the afternoon of our last day here
writing this blog. Our meals so far on this trip have been leftovers from home
and Wendy’s drive thru. Nightly entertainment has been DVD movies for the most
part, especially here in central
Friday September 10, 2021
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| Travel from the New River Gorge to Elkins WV |
Drive today was about 140 miles, instead of taking the most direct route which included some interstate highway we took an alternate route on two lane country roads. It was a wonderful ride thru the mountains and up thru a long series of valleys in the Monongahela National forest. There wasn’t a mile of it that was straight and level, it was all uphill or down with s curves and switchbacks all the way, this is the way to see the country!
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| The farm lane to the campground |
We arrived in Elkins
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| One of the dilapidated buildings on the farm/campground/music venue? |
The campground is on a farm outside of town, that was something new for us and we were looking forward to it. It turned out to be an old dilapidated place; it hadn’t been farmed or taken care of for a long while.
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| Our camp site, well it was quiet! |
The campground was in pretty good shape, utility hookups were good, the site was solid almost level gravel. One thing that was in need of attention the grass, it seriously needed mowing. If the previous camper hadn’t flattened it with a large mat in the area outside the door of the RV it would not have been acceptable. But then there really isn’t anywhere else to stay in the area.
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| One of the crazy traffic patterns on the farm |
I was surprised that the owner hadn’t taken better care of
the camp, for he had very specific rules we were to follow and I assumed he ran
a tight ship. The one way only driving around the camp, double bagging trash,
or not driving on the grass seemed petty after our arrival and finding Green
Acres and not a
The camp sites are laid out in a large circle around a grass pasture. In the center are the rotting remains of a stage setup. It had clearly been used for musical venues of some sort in the past. The owner told me they host Hippie fests there and have had 7000 people on the farm.
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| Can you imagine 7000 old hippies here for a concert? |
After setting up and lunch we drove into Elkins to check it out. To be brutally honest, it was pretty sad. It just seemed to economically depressed, old rundown and dirty. After our brief drive around town, we decided to go out to one of the other campground choices we had near Elkins. I had rejected it right off when planning the trip based on an online review. On the campground reviews website someone claimed to have been thrown out because they complained about a turkey in their campsite. According to them the wild turkey was a pet of the campground owner’s brother. There’s more to the story but I digress.
We never did tour the campground with the turkey caper
because we found a sign for a campground in the Stuart Recreation Area and it
took all the daylight we had left to get to the top and back. The mountain is
part of the
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| Bickle Knob 4003 feet |
As we climbed the staircase I told Millie I’d been to the
top of a tower exactly like this a long time ago in
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| Millie climbing the tower |
All of the previous rambling doesn’t paint a very nice picture and it shouldn’t. The Fed’s should be keeping up the maintenance here and other places like it. My theory is the politicians are so corrupt and obsessed with stealing for their own personal gain that they don’t even to care about places like this. Again I digress and step off my soapbox.
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| Lots of West by god Virginny behind me! |
The very good news is the view from the tower (4003 feet) is one of the most spectacular scenes anywhere. For 360 degrees for as far as the eye can see are nothing but mountains, thousands of them. You see no houses, no highways, no towns, no buildings, nothing but trees and mountains. There are a few small clearings way off in one direction and what looks like a fire break or clearing for power lines but it is so far away it doesn’t distract from the absolute beauty of this place.
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| We finally found the campground |
Descending from the peak we turned and followed the fork that would lead us to the campground and the road back to civilization. (I’m not sure we should even call it that anymore) By now we knew that the campground was going to be rustic with no utility hookups and probably not large enough site for our RV. It was exactly as we surmised; we did a quick drive thru and then continued our decent. This road was just like the one we came up, one lane, gravel and not a foot of it on level grade. The heavily forested terrain shot steeply upwards on the left and dropped headlong into canyons on the right, the only difference between this and the road we took to the top is we were now going downhill instead of up.
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| A close up picture of the tower |
After what seemed like a long drive, the mountain trail ended on route 33, just like the sign said it would. We were 10 miles further down the road than were we started but we weren’t lost. A short time later we were at Wal-Mart in Elkins, fueled up the truck, picked up a few groceries and we were home just before dark. It was quite a day!
PS: An interesting side note. We got a call from our
neighbor back in
PSS: This is the second campground so far this trip with no cell service, no data internet service and no campground supplied WiFi. I don’t know when I will be able to get this and the pictures online, probably when we get home.
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| We were without cell service (Verizon) more often than not in West Virginia |
Saturday September 11, 2021
We had several objectives today, all of them were less spectacular than
we expected. By 9:30 we were on the road to the town of Phillipi
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| The best photo view, but you still need to edit out the wires and cell tower. |
Next objective, also in Phillipi was a covered bridge that
predates the Civil War. We did learn some interesting history about the bridge
and the war. The first land battle of the Civil War was fought here in
Phillipi. Those damn Yankees charged down the hill, crossed the covered bridge
and chased the confederate boys down
Interesting fact: The confederate battle flag carried that day was exactly the same as the present day South Carolina Palmetto Flag. Don’t tell the left, they’ll be protesting our flag as being racist and demanding we replace it with one with **********redacted by wife********. Use your imagination!
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| Confederate battle flag, later to become the South Carolina state flag |
Back to the bridge, it is an impressive work of engineering; it incorporates two sets of arches in order to span the river. Another unique feature is its double width; it carries two lanes of traffic, one in each direction. Over the years the bridge has been reinforced to handle heavier traffic, mostly to the supports under it. The wooden structure is largely the original wood it was made with in 1855. Amazingly, this bridge still carry’s traffic across it.
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| Millie on the pedestrian bridge, original (1852) wooden arch of the Phillipi bridge behind her |
The detrimental aspect of the bridge is all the junk you have to look at when you’re here viewing it in person. All the “media” pictures of the bridge have the unsightly stuff photo-shopped out, but here you see the steel excess height barriers, the sand filled collision drums, the metal walkway, the power lines, highway signs, etc. One more thing I missed is not being able to walk inside the bridge covering, it is a state highway going thru it and pedestrians are not allowed.
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| The not so nice view point. |
On the way back to Elkins we stopped at a Flea Market. We had to pay 25 cents each to enter the grounds; we’ve never seen that before. The only thing we bought was 12 DVD’s at 50 cents each for the RV.
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| An easy walk from the parking lot to the tower. |
After lunch at the RV we headed out again to the east this
time. We traveled 50 miles to the base of a mountain in the Monongahela
mountain range. We then drove another 12 miles up a single lane road to the top
of Spruce Knob. At 4860 feet it is the highest point in
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| On the observation tower at Spruce Knob (elevation 4860 feet) |
We got back to the RV at 5pm and I cooked our first meal outside on this trip; fried potatoes and grilled chicken on the griddle.
Sunday September 12, 2021
Breakfast= fried potato, eggs, bacon, and toast, all cooked outside
Today we drove 50 miles up newly paved route 219. It was a
fun drive on a winding country road with almost no other traffic. Our
destination was the
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| This marker is at the top of the mountain |
The trail and the mountain is private land, but the owner allows people to climb to the top. About ¼ mile up the trail the area had been logged. Besides being unsightly, the trail was a mess and in some places muddy. That went on for another ¼ mile and then we were back in the forest.
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| Passing thru an area that has been recently logged |
About halfway up the trail we had a woman in the 50-60 age range that came up behind us very quickly. She stopped for a minute to chat and told us it was her 102nd time going to the crest since the start of the chinavirus. She then bounded up the trail and was gone in a flash. A short while later she came by us again, coming downhill this time and she was running. Not sure if her daily run up the mountain is for exercise or sanity during the epidemic, but she's dedicated herself to the task.
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| We made it to the top |
When you get to the very top the trail levels out some and
you have an easy walk for about 100 yards to the marker at the
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| uphill or down, it hurts either way! |
For me the descent was harder than going up. Neither of us had any difficulty with muscles or joints going up, we just had to stop once and a while to catch our breath. Going down my hips were in almost constant discomfort. The good news is any minor aches we had that evening were gone by the next day.
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| Living the dream! |
We drove 48 miles each way 96 miles total and only took 4.1 gal of gas when we refueled in Elkins. Amazing.
Dominos pizza for dinner
We went back to town to a McDonalds for wifi after dinner. I
made reservations for Monday at a Corp of Engineers (COE) park near Confluence
PA. Our next quest is the High Point of PA,
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| Why do hippies always have a bus? |
I did briefly speak with the park owner about the stage setup in the middle of the campground. He said he hosted rock concerts and has had as many as 7k hippies on the farm (Pegasus Farm). He looks and acts like a spaced out old hippie. UPDATE: When we got to PA and I finally got a data quality signal (For the first time since we left home) I googled the owner. He really is an old Hippie and so is his wife. Mark and Bonnie Branciaroli still play in a band called ZEN.
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| Front center, Bonnie and Mark |
Movie night. I am Legend starring Will Smith. It is freakily like the chinavirus, it didn’t work out so well for mankind in the movie.
Final notes on West Virginia. A lot of the small towns are dead/dying/ or at best economically depressed. We did pass thru a couple nice looking places, the town of Parsons for one. On a brighter note, the government is spending big bucks improving roads especially route 219. There were lots of motorcycle groups running on these mountain roads, I know they were having fun on the newly paved surface. We didn’t see a lot of the rural folks, but we did see the urban dwellers n the towns. Like their big city brethren, they seem to spend their money on purple hair and tattoo’s. Mankind is in decline that’s for sure.
Several days after I wrote the above soapbox speech I read an interesting article by Carlson Tucker. I will paraphrase a few lines.
“the
greatest crisis that
Monday September 13, 2021
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| Elkins WV to Confluence PA |
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| Army Corp of Engineers CG near Confluence PA |
We arrived right around noon and after a quick lunch of
left-over Domino’s pizza we hopped in the truck and drove to
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| Another drive up highpoint. The observation tower at Mt Davis appears to be an old fire watch station.  Millie studies the bronze 3D relief map of the surrounding area.  |
We took a different route back to the campground, The GPS got lost and we had to get home the old fashion way, printed road map, road signs and our intuition.
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| It was almost this complicated! |
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| Large earthen damn looms over the campground |
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| water discharge from the damn |
That evening while I was doing some online research on RV
parking at
Tuesday September 14, 2021
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| A long but interesting new route for us. |
We broke camp and were on the road a little after nine and drove 385 miles from western PA to Rocky Mount North Carolina. We traveled the interstate system from western PA to Fredrick MD to save time in the mountains. From Fredrick we drove secondary roads south to the North Carolina line, then a short jaunt down I-95 to our overnight camp. We stopped at a KOA campground located between Roanoke Rapids and Rocky Mount and just off I-95. We arrived at 6pm and left the truck hooked up to the RV, plugged in the electric cord and put out the slide.
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| KOA CG at Enfield NC. |
Millie fixed burritos from some leftover ingredients in the frig and we just veg’ed out until bedtime, Millie playing games on her pad and me catching up on email, FB, etc.
Wednesday September 15, 2021
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| As usual we stayed off the interstates as much as possible. |
Both of us being awake at 6:30am I said to Millie, “Do want to just get up and go, we can be on the road by seven.” We had arrived after office hours and left before they opened in the morning so I left my CC number on the night check in envelope along with my phone number. I never heard anything from them so I guess they got their funds. A little over 4 hours later we pulled into the storage lot to drop off the RV. A half hour later and we were on our way home.
Conclusion:
The Catwalk Roadtrip was a spontaneous adventure. We had
just returned from 16 day trip when I read about the Catwalk tours under the
roadbed of the
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| The Catwalk Tour |
I almost forgot the catwalk. 3000 feet on a two foot wide
catwalk in the truss work under the roadway, 852 feet above the
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| "While alive, live life!" |
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