joyful noise: West Virginia

Saturday, October 19

We got up & headed to West Virginia for our vacation- Mac had been looking forward to this long time off for a VERY long time! We had a good drive and got there pretty early Saturday and were able to enjoy one of the few days with "warmer" weather.

Doggies very excited to be in the mountains

Kitty girl joined too!

Awesome moon rise

Sunday, October 20

We watched Newspring online, went and visited with some family for a little and mostly just relaxed. The doggies were excited to see each other and with the new fence, they had tons of room to run and play. Good start to our vacation.

Monday, October 21

Monday we headed to Jefferson National Forest and hiked to Cascade Falls. It was freezing, so we had the trail almost all to ourselves. We warmed up fast and the waterfall was well worth the hike and being cold.

Tuesday, October 22

Tuesday we drove to Paint Bank and had a very yummy lunch at The Swinging Bridge Restaurant. We all rewarded ourselves before our hike and each had a giant dessert :-) No regrets whatsoever, they were delish!!

After stuffing our faces, we drove to Allegheny Trail and hiked to the fire tower/Hanging Rock Lookout. The view was amazing- Aside from Mac being a daredevil and scaring me to death looking over the rocks, it was a great hike!

Exhausted from hiking so much!

Wednesday, October 23

Relaxation and just hanging out were all that were on the schedule for Wednesday. Our busy beginning of the week earned us a "do-nothing" day. After lounging around for the day, we headed to Uncle David & Aunt Evelyn's house for a yummy dinner. During dinner, we were joined by about 15 deer grazing in the backyard.

Fun picture for the day- like mother like son

The 6pt buck of the group

Gracie hanging out with the deer

Thursday, October 24

I think Mac was most excited for our day Thursday- We headed to Lewisburg where we had lunch and shopped for a while. We can definitely say we did some major eating on this vacation- lunch was so good and shopping wasn't too bad either!

Afterwards, we drove to The Greenbier and explored for a while. Mac is already excited to play the course the next time we are in WV, but for this trip he settled for checking it all out and taking home a souvenir golf ball ;-)

Friday, October 25

Friday, we woke up to some snow on the ground and freezing cold weather- what happened to Fall? It was pretty though and didn't last too long.

After breakfast, Mac & I ventured just a few miles away to Organ Cave- the 2nd largest cave on the east coast. We did the tour that included the formation side of the cave and the Civil War side. I have only been in 1 other cave and Mac had never been caving, so it was a fun experience. We learned a ton- I could probably write a book- and since it was pretty cold and a slow day at the cave, we ended up having a private tour.

Where over 1,100 Confederate soldiers hid from the Yankees for about 3 years- Under the command of General Robert E. Lee they worked constantly to manufacture gun powder. These are pictures of the saltpeter hoppers used to to do so- There used to be more of these wooden hoppers, but about 1 a year collapses-

Cave Crickets

The Organ- makes a pretty awesome noise

live formations

Sweet little Brown Bats- the man showed us how to pet them- so cute

Saturday, October 26

Saturday, after going to the Ruritan Club's auction (where my mom got her favorite apple butter and even came home with a pack and play for the baby) we went to Hinton for their annual Railroad Days festival. The streets were lined with vendors selling a little bit of everything. Mac was excited to find fresh popped kettle corn while I went for the ice cream and we came home with some yummy blackberry jam.