The story below is an excerpt from our May/June 2017 issue. For the rest of this story and more like it subscribe today, log in to read our digital edition or download our FREE iOS app. Thank you!
In the spirit of this issue’s summer getaways theme, here’s a look back at a great family trip to West Virginia.
Joe Tennis’ piece on great summer excursions in our seven-state coverage area (see page 28) got me to thinking about such.
And about how if you combine nine pretty-little kids, 10 30- and 20-somethings and one semi-geezer couple, you’ve got a challenge for an all-enjoy vacation.
For our family the other summer, West Virginia had the answer, in the form of Canaan Valley Resort State Park as home base and that part of the state as playground.
Our four cabins were all within shouting-distance proximity, and we were often thankful that people in the other cabins nearby never seemed to notice the occasional vocal other-enthusiasm from certain people not yet four feet tall, communicating with full excitement and volume from one cabin across the way to another. Over things like bacon, say. Whose turn it was in the hammock. Or who wasn’t throwing the Frisbee enough to one particular person.
But aside from morning and evening, though, we were largely away from the cabins, and instead out discovering some of the good fun nearby. As in several Real Men and one Real Woman (age 7) taking off one morning into Dolly Sods for an overnight backpacking trip, having left the slackers and the babies behind after a lunch along Red Creek.
And a fine hike it was: A little more than six miles up onto the plateau the first day, followed by a night at a perfect camp spot and then just under eight miles back down the next day. Dolly Sods lives up to its piece-of-Canada reputation every time, with its bogs and berries, vistas and evergreens galore. And the feeling of being alone and remote. Which, for the most part, you are.
