Rose River Falls Trail

We turned left off the fire road to follow the trail in a clockwise direction along the river over Rose River Falls. The water cascaded beautifully over the rocks before coming to a deep plunge further down. The trail then turned, and we followed the river upstream, finding breathtaking views at every turn as we passed multiple waterfalls along the way to the 70-foot Dark Hollow Falls. It was a beautiful day. The leaves were barely starting to change color, the flowers were blooming, there were interesting rock formations, and we saw a ton of mushrooms. It was a great way to begin our adventure.

We had planned on another waterfall hike nearby, but with the sky turning grey, our late departure, and then the detour, we decided against it. Instead, we headed to Douthat State Park for the night, stopping in Waynesboro to say one more goodbye. As we drove down the interstate, the clouds started to disperse, the sky becoming a majestic display of light streams pouring through, spreading in all directions down to the earth.

When we arrived at the campground, we discovered that the way we had packed the truck, as we would for any campout, was not going to work. We skipped dinner, exhausted from the eight hours of sleep we had in the last two nights, and crashed for the next ten hours. In the morning, we repacked the truck to be more conducive to what we needed for this particular trip. Chris found a gorgeous, fresh chicken of the woods mushroom very close to our campsite.

West Virginia

Refreshed, we continued our journey west. After driving into West Virginia, we left the interstate to cross the state on smaller backroads, winding our way up and over the mountain, with turns that felt more like u-turns than bends in the road. The countryside was amazingly beautiful. Chris commented that if Colorado didn’t work out, West Virginia might be a nice place to settle down and homestead.

A Visit With Good Friends

We planned to spend a few days visiting our good friends, Joe and Jenny. After we arrived at their home, we spent the afternoon playing the Fayette County Park Disc Golf Course. The course was a tough one, but we enjoyed laughing with each other over the crazy shots and cheering each other on the few fantastic ones we managed to pull off. The course was gorgeous. As we prepared to throw down a large hill, a flock of a dozen turkeys suddenly appeared to our delight.

Chris was in heaven when we found mushrooms everywhere, all shapes and sizes. We even found shrimp of the woods, a hybrid formed when Entoloma mushrooms parasitize honey mushrooms. He has been looking for them forever and was ecstatic to discover some finally. We harvested some of the mushrooms and cooked the tasty treats up later for a snack.

We spent the rest of the evening outside by the massive firepit in the backyard. I haven’t laughed so hard in years. I can’t think of any better way to relax than with the best company, laughing around a bonfire. It was perfection.

In the morning, we had a relaxing breakfast with the chicken of the woods we found the day before, and then we set out to explore the New River Gorge. The New River Gorge Bridge, the longest spanning bridge in the Western hemisphere, was impressive, traversing the nearly 900-foot drop to the bottom of the gorge. We followed the winding road leading down to the gorge’s bottom, crossing the river on a lower bridge with a beautiful view of the big bridge over the rapids underneath. I wanted to stop for a photo, but there was nowhere to park when we reached the pull-off area.

After exploring the gorge, we headed to Wonderland Disc Golf Course. The course was fun and much less taxing than Fayette County Park had been. Joe suggested we play in Huntington in the morning, offering to drive separately, allowing us to continue our journey from there. We would have rerouted to make it happen, but we were going right through Huntington anyway when I checked our route. We ended the night with a lively, entertaining game of spades.

In the morning, we played Rotary Park Disc Golf Course in Huntington. The course was challenging but not too difficult. After the game, we parted ways with our dear friends and continued our journey. A few days of fun and good company did a lot to relieve the last few weeks’ stress.