Post 32 New River Gorge NP, Shenandoah NP, Gettysburg

 New River Gorge NP, Shenandoah NP, Gettysburg May 10-17

New River Gorge NP is in eastern West Virginia.  The park is comprised of land along a beautiful white water river gorge.  Our first stop was the Sandstone Visitor Center where we learned about the watershed and history of the New River.  Exhibits emphasized the local flora and fauna and the impact human activities have on the river. There were many small and large recycling practices demonstrated and ways to recycle at home. In fact, this Visitor Center was the old local high school, just rehabbed for use by the National Park System. The landscaping demonstrates different ecosystems present in this part of West Virginia. Just wonderful!

We drove south along the river and stopped at an overlook that featured the New River Falls. Spring has definitely moved into this part of West Virginia. 

In the afternoon, we headed north in the park to visit Grandview Visitor Center.  The visitor center was closed, but the trails to the river overlook start at this location.  The rhododendrons were in full bloom around the parking lot and were just starting to bloom in the shadier areas of the trails as we explored.

While in West Virginia we camped at a great campground - Little Beaver State Park. The sites were big and wooded. Ours had a large deteriorating pine stump along the access road. For two evenings, we watched a Pileated Woodpecker work its way into the stump! We were able to get close to watch it peck away with exuberance. It was definitely looking for insects and having a successful go at almost chipping a hole to the middle from two sides of the stump. 

From New River Gorge we headed back to Virginia and made a two day stop in Harrisonburg. 

Harrisonburg, VA is very close to Shenandoah NP and the Skyline Drive. We entered Skyline Drive in the northern part of the park and drove 30 miles south to the exit near our KOA campground. It's a pretty drive with many vistas and overlooks to the east and west. Cindy drove so that Anne didn't have to look down. She prefers to enjoy mountains from a distance and not on a windy, narrow road. Sadly, there were no Visitor Centers open along Skyline drive, it was probably too early in the season. We always like to check out National Park information and exhibits when ever we are there.

 

The Virginia Quilt Museum is in Harrisonburg - who knew! It's housed in an old mill. The exhibits were wonderful - it was featuring a Tobacco Stamp Quilt exhibit. Something we learned about through the quilters comments and exhibit notes.  To encourage the purchase of cigarettes, the tobacco companies included a series of small (2"x3") fabric pictures in their packages.  The series had different themes-dogs, flags, costumes of other countries.  Women collected them and used them to decorate items they sewed.

 

Our campground kept chickens - their coop was on their very own campsite! Delicious, fresh eggs! The campground owner had 3 beautiful tanks with Axolotls. They are amphibians, a type of salamander. We had never seen any before. You just never know what you might find traveling.........

Next destination: Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to finish our Civil War tour.

Once we settled in we headed to the local brewery near a beautiful old round barn.  They had some great beer and we got to watch a diving dog exhibit!  They sponsor a diving dog team with a pool on their property.  Fun to watch them practice.

We spent our first day in Gettysburg at the Visitor Center. We started our education with a movie about the battle here. We also experienced the cyclorama, a 360 degree life-size painting of the battle that made you feel like you were there on the battlefield.

On day two, our trusty audio Guide Along guide, Guy, took us on a tour of the monuments and battlefields.  It was during this tour that we got a better sense of how the three day battle played out. Actually, seeing and being in the field made things clearer.

On day three, we returned to the visitor center to tour the museum.  Here they broke down the battle by the day.

Gettysburg was a horrendous bloodbath, with 7000 killed and 33,000 wounded.  As with most of the Civil War battles, the majority of the wounded died later in the field and hospital from infections.

Our country never really healed from this war. We actually found people that believed that they were living in an occupied country. At the start of the war, seven states seceded and declared themselves a new country.  Today, some still believe they should have been able to secede. What was it really about??  The right for states to secede??   Or the right to own slaves??  Most likely the right to secede so they could continue to own slaves.

It's been a heavy few days, so we are headed to the beach before we make our way back to Massachusetts.  Assateague, here we come.