Cambridge Ontario to Fayetteville West Virginia

Let me say right off the to that this was a perfect riding day. Sunny, warm, everything one could want. Instead of fighting the QEW from Hamilton, we took Highway 20 to Niagara Falls and made good time without the stress of dodging big trucks and psychotic drivers. Border crossing was easy and the trip through New York, Pennsylvania and West (BG) Virginia was uneventful.

I stopped at the WV Welcome Center for a campground guide to look up a place in the south end of the state to spend the night. It looks like the only campgrounds in that part of the state are in the New River Gorge area and cater to white water rafters. The Rivers Campground in Fayetteville looked promising so I phoned them. (For the first time ever, my cell phone worked in WV.) They were located at the south side of the New River Gorge Bridge and had room. Boy, did they have room. There were 600 people there for rafting on Memorial Day Weekend, but tonight there were three high school graduates from Chillicothe Ohio and a couple of rafting guides. We set up in a serviced RV site and then found that the electrical plug wouldn’t fit the special high amp RV socket in the pole. Oh well, we didn’t need juice tonight anyway.

At the recommendation of the bartender (who was closing the bar at 6:00 PM), we wandered over to Dirty Ernie’s Rib Pit for supper. We split a Belly Buster order of ribs and didn’t have room for desert. By the time we were done, clouds had rolled in and a light rain was starting so we headed back to camp. Sandy crawled into bed and I donned my Frogg Togg jacket and wandered down to the campfire the kids and guides had going. Barry, a slightly older guide, recounted how he had quit a good paying job in Lancaster, Pennsylvania to become a rafting guide. He had also hiked the Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia and set fire to a Frogg Togg jacket while still wearing it. (I eased back from the fire.) We talked everything from business to NASCAR until it was time for me to turn in.