After listening to traffic (average time between vehicles at 3 am was 1 min 18 sec) and trains last night we headed south for home. Stopped at the artisan center in Tamarac where there are always unique crafts.
Didn’t buy new shoes, but remembered that the Greenbrier Resort is also in West Virginia. Called and they had room in their 2:00 tour.
Open from 7am to 8pm, Tamarack has restaurants, clean restrooms, a convention center, and hands-on craft classes.
For self-contained campers, there is free overnight parking in one of the parking lots.
Here are a few more of the cool craft items on display at Tamarac like Quilts
Carvings
Unique lamps
And ceramic owls with a great title “Why can’t we owl just get along?”
Stopped for a picnic lunch at New River Gorge overlook. We were one of three families there! Do stop if you are ever near the I77/I64 split. We will plan to spend more time here on our next trip north.
Greenbrier is where congress would have been sheltered in the event of a nuclear attack on Washington. It was a secret until 1992. The 1.5 hour tour was very cool, but no photos were allowed. Both houses of congress, an aide each, and their families could be housed and fed for sixty days. Some of the shelter area is now in use for corporate data storage. They can cool and run the servers for at least sixty days if the power grid goes down.
The resort, built by the C&O Railroad, is gorgeous. We decided not to buy anything else after learning it is owned by Jim Justice, the democratic, now republican, governor of West Virginia.
Large vehicles, including camper vans, park at the train station. Direct rail access from Washington, DC was one of the deciding factors when the shelter was designed.
Later, the local interstate was one of the first to be widened into four lanes – to accommodate landing jets in an emergency!
The train station has been converted to a gift shop with a (very) christmassy theme.
We were distracted today so didn’t make it home. Instead we are spending the night in a Corp of Engineers campground in Virginia. Worried about getting a spot we elected to not look for a restaurant for our 30th anniversary dinner. Arriving at the 58 site campground we drove through both loops looking for a perfect site. Two sites were occupied by campground hosts and one other by a camping family – that was it. The host laughed and said if we went around one more time we might find an open site. We have a whole section to ourselves with our own bath house!
We may make it home tomorrow…