Even more impressive than the fact that we’ve only resorted to sleeping in our car once due to weather is the fact that last night was only the second night we’ve camped without cell service. West Virginia hasn’t exactly been stellar with regards to cell service in general, but we chalk that up to the fact that we’ve been driving on some crazy forested mountain roads. It’s okay. We don’t need no stinkin’ GPS! The National Park Service has signs for a reason. We muddle through just fine. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Yesterday we went to breakfast with Mike’s Aunt Mary before hitting the road. She took us to her favorite place (the one with the peanut butter chocolate cake) in Mechanicsburg, and it was really delicious. Tucked away in a little shopping center next door to a zumba class, we would have never found it on our own. The food was delicious, and the company was great. (Thanks again, Mary!)
Full of delicious breakfast, we hit the road for Gettysburg. It’s not terribly far from Mechanicsburg, so we arrived in no time. The thing about Gettysburg is that it was really grossly hot and humid. We decided to drive the auto tour route (without the taped tour, which we’ve been told is horribly boring) with the windows up and the AC blasting. Of course, there was construction on the tour and the road was closed for a bit and we couldn’t find our way back to the tour right away, so we decided to just park in Lincoln Square and wander a bit. Yeah, remember that part about it being hot and gross outside? Well, we wussed out pretty quickly. We decided that since Gettysburg is so close to Mike’s family, we’ll just go another time. Hopefully during the spring or fall when it isn’t so hot! (Sidebar: the battle of Gettysburg was fought in July! We don’t know how they did it without air conditioning. And weren’t their uniforms made of wool? It must have sucked!)
From Gettysburg, we headed towards West Virginia. This area of the country is just amazingly pretty. There are giant trees, and green rolling hills, chunks of forest…it’s all gorgeous. Yesterday though, there was so much humidity in the air that everything looked hazy, so I don’t know how good our pictures will turn out. We drove through the pan handle of West Virginia – a little area where we went from Pennsylvania to Maryland to Virginia to West Virginia in less than an hour. It was pretty amazing. We decided that we were feeling a bit peckish, so we found a brewery about an hour away that was sort of on our intended route and headed there. Of course, when we arrived (around 4 o’clock) we found out that they don’t open until five. Sigh. We didn’t want to wait around so we just looked longingly at the door for a while before getting in the car and going on our (slightly less) merry way.
Here’s where things get interesting. In searching for a backup plan, we found this Venezuelan restaurant in Elkins, West Virginia that had a few good reviews. A Venezuelan restaurant? In rural West Virginia? Yeah, right! The reviews all expressed astonishment that the place existed at all, let alone that it was good, so we decided to try it. How bad could it be?
It was tucked away off the main drag in a residential neighborhood, and it clearly was a house that had been redone into a restaurant. (We have a thing for those types of places.) We chose to sit at the bar, where the ‘band’ (and I use that term loosely) was setting up to play. Our server/bartender spoke English with a heavy accent, as did almost everyone that worked there. We tried asking her about wheat flour in things, and she kept saying that things that we were pretty sure only had corn had wheat flour in them, so Mike ordered something grilled, just to be safe. (It turned out that he probably could have had the item in question, since I ordered it and I’m 99.9% sure that it was entirely corn, but oh well. Next time I’ll bust out my Spanish to ask instead. In retrospect, I’m not sure why I didn’t then…oops!)
Anyway, the food was delicious, the beer was cold, and the people watching was awesome. The band consisted of four dudes, one of whom clearly worked at the restaurant – and it was pretty apparent that they don’t really play together all that often. Once they started playing, it was kind of obvious why – they had a sax, a trumpet, a keyboard, and a drummer. Random combo, but surprisingly good. It’s too bad we weren’t camping closer to Elkins, because we would have stayed to watch the spectacle. As it was, we were in a race with the sun to get to our campsite before dark, so we hit the road.
We had decided to camp in Cedar Creek State Park, which was down a crazy winding road in the forest. Google had mapped it in the middle of nowhere, far from the little green blob labeled Cedar Creek State Park on the map, so we decided to just follow the signs and hope for the best. It worked, and we found ourselves in a beautiful campsite, right near the creek, surrounded by lightning bugs and very few other campers. It’s a pretty sweet spot. I could have watched the fireflies and looked at the stars all night. And yes, no cell service, so if you’re reading this, we must have found our way back to civilization to send it.
Today we’re headed for Kentucky. I hear they have bourbon there, so this should be a good day.