It was a gray morning, but we were in a good mood, having stolen an entire try of cinnamon buns from the hotel breakfast area.
Ok, that didn't really happen. I was just trying to get Andy fired up. We limited ourselves to 1 apiece, but I can't say that we weren't tempted to stuff our pockets with more.
Our destination was...
Canaan Valley State Park is primarily a ski resort run by the state of West Virginia's park service. But it's open year-round and features all sorts of activities and services. They have a hotel, pool, ski lift and slopes, golf course, tube slide, and hiking trails. It's also very remote.
I had stayed here a couple of times as a kid on family trips and always enjoyed it. We decided to stop in for the day as a way to break up the drive home. Plus, we'd seen a lot of urban destinations on this trip, and it was time to get out in the country. As we arrived, I used my incredible powers of deduction to determine that a fellow Phineas & Ferb fan was around:
Our first order of business was to go geocaching. What's geocaching, you ask? (Yup, I heard you. Right through the computer screen. Keep it down next time, will ya?)
Geocaching is basically a high-tech scavenger hunt. People all over the world hide "caches", which can be as small as a thumbtack or as large as a shoebox, and then post the coordinates on
geocaching.com. You look up a region on the website, see if there are any caches you want to try and find, download the coordinates to your handheld GPS unit, and away you go. The cache usually has some simple treasures inside such as patches, pins, coins, or a logbook to sign. You can also go back to the website and log the ones you found.
The resort had their own caches hidden throughout the park and a list of coordinates and hints at the desk. With the list in hand, we headed down the first trail.
After a while, the GPS showed that we were getting close. So we stopped to do what bears do in the woods, which of course is to poke around looking for things people left behind. Why, what did you think they did?
After some searching, we found what appeared to be an army munitions box under some branches.
Naturally, our first instinct was to open it right up. And...it was the geocache! We'd found it, and hadn't blown ourselves to smithereens in the process, which is a bonus. We signed the log book inside to record our names forever in geocaching history....until the page is full and somebody puts a new one inside.
We made our way back to the van.
The next geocache happened to be located at the top of the ski slopes, according to the list. So, darn it all, we were just going to have to take a ride on the ski lift.
We split up, with David and me leading the way on the first chair and Julie following with Sarah and Scotty. As you can see, the chair lift consisted of wide chairs hanging by one arm from a single steel cable with at least a 20-30' drop underneath. We did have a flimsy metal bar that we swung down over our heads to keep us in the chair.
As we rode, we'd have to stop every once in a while as someone was let on or off down at the bottom. When we stopped, the chair would give a slight lurch and then swing a bit, back and forth. Dave thought it was fun once he got used to it.
The view looking back:
And looking down:
We got to the top, waited for Julie and the kids to dismount, and then I asked everyone what they thought of the ski lift. The kids LOVED it! They all had a blast riding up.
Julie...not so much. She was visibly shaking and said, "That was HORRIBLE. I hated it! I was scared to death on that thing."
So, Lindsey Vonn need not be worried about any competition anytime soon.
Still, the view was worth the ride:
And we were also successful in finding a second geocache!
This one also did not explode, which you probably figured out since it would be hard for me to type this TR if it had.
After doing some more hiking at the top of the mountain and enjoying the view, it was time to head back down. Everyone was enthusiastic about riding the ski lift down. Except Julie, who said something like, "I'm not getting back on that @#%$ deathtrap again."
Actually, she said, "I don't think I can ride it down." She got a little pale.
So we talked to the guy at the lift station and asked if there was any way she could walk down. "Sure," the guy said. "Just follow the ski slopes down." The kids all wanted to ride, and required adult supervision. We couldn't find any responsible adults, so I rode with them. Julie set off on foot. I was hoping she'd just drop to the ground and roll, but the slopes seemed to be walk-able.
Looks like the kids were still having fun. We enjoyed a calm ride down the mountain and then waited at the bottom for Julie, hoping it wouldn't take her too long. About five minutes after we'd arrived, she appeared like a siren in the mist:
Julie enjoyed the walk much more than the @#$% deathtrap--excuse me, ski lift. She said it was very quiet and peaceful, and she was even able to see quite a few butterflies. She didn't have any pictures, though, so it's debatable whether that really happened.
Coming Up Next: A spectacular waterfall! And have you ever had problems sleeping in a hotel bed? Dave will give a clinic on how to get to sleep.
Oh, it was just a geocache...
I'm not even sure how to reply to that line. 
camouflage
sigh, how is it that no one has mentioned that these must be Good n Fruity's? Good n Plentys are little heavenly bits of black licorice coated in thick pink and white sugary goodness. THough really they look like Mike & Ikes 
There were TONS of butterflies. It was a truly beautiful, peaceful experience. 
