Trip to Roanoke

We just got back from our trip to Virginia on Sunday, and I’m just now getting around to posting something about it. We had a great time and really enjoyed our stay with Bryce and Dena in Roanoke. We got there on Friday afternoon after a redeye flight from Vegas to Atlanta to Greensboro Thursday night, so we were pretty beat. But we felt better after a nap, and went out for dinner that evening. On Saturday morning, we went down to the farmer’s market downtown and Mom and Dena did some jewelry shopping.

Jewelry shopping at the market.

Then we went for a short hike to a place called Roaring Run that had an old iron smelter from Civil War days and a small waterfall upstream a bit. The Blue Ridge Parkway runs right through the area, and we drove a little ways on that, as well. Sunday, we relaxed and ended up going to a baseball game in Salem.

Even Zoey was smiling!

Bryce had to work during the week, and rather than hang around and drive Dena crazy all week, Mom and I loaded up Monday morning and drove to Parkersburg, West Virginia to see Uncle Frank and Aunt Jeannine. We spent the night there and had a good visit with them and got to see 4 of their kids (Mom’s cousins): Jane, Judy, Doug and Clark. It was fun to see them and we got to visit a few of the places Mom remembered from visiting there when she was little.


On Tuesday, we went up the river to Tip and Joan’s house above the Ohio River and had a nice visit with them, as well. Cousin David was there with his pet gray wolf, and we got to visit with Cousin Darren and his family as well. After our visit there, we drove up the state and ended up in Washington, Pa for the night, where we found out that hotel rooms are at a premium all through West Virginia and the surrounding areas. It seems there is a huge natural gas drilling boom going on in the state and all the motel rooms are occupied by the drilling crews. So we ended up staying at a place that was - shall we put it kindly? – less than acceptable. We plan to forget that part of the trip, so I’ll move on.

Yes, that's a full grown gray wolf.

Wednesday, we spent basically just exploring the mountains of West Virginia. We found a place called Prickett’s Fort, that is a rebuilt pioneer fort from around the 1770 era. They had living history people dressed in period costume and doing period things. We enjoyed it so much, we ended up spending half the day there. I got to spend about half an hour just talking to the blacksmith. There were ladies weaving woolen blankets on a loom very much like the one my great-grandfather built in Idaho way back when. We made our way down to Elkins, West Virginia and spent that night in a much nicer motel and room, which made us feel better.

We headed back to Roanoke on Thursday, but stopped at a place called Seneca Caverns and toured their cave. They also had a mining sluice setup out back, so we bought a bag of dirt (or mining rough, as they called it – but it looked a lot like dirt to me) and sifted through it for the gems inside. It was really pretty fun.

Mining for gems

Friday was mostly a goof off day (it was a vacation, after all!), but we got to see more of the house that Bryce and Dena are in the process of acquiring. It is an older house in a historic neighborhood of Roanoke and is being remodeled by some contractors to (mostly) their specifications. There has been some miscommunication and misunderstandings with the contractors that have nearly driving Bryce and Dena crazy, but the end may be in sight soon. It’s a beautiful old house with tons of room, a big back yard and a giant garage/shop that Bryce is looking forward to.

Friday night, we went with Bryce and Dena and another couple they are friends with to a little town called Floyd, where every Friday night, people gather on the 3 blocks of the main drag, bring their instruments and just get together in small groups and play music. It’s pretty informal, with the players maybe moving from group to group during the evening, people walking around and listening and just a great time by all. Mostly bluegrass music by some extremely talented musicians. There are also some uncommon instruments to be seen – a washtub bass fiddle, some kind of big box with wooden tabs that works like a bass, and the week before, they saw a weird Swedish instrument called a nyckelharpa (Bryce googled “Swedish stringed instrument” to show us a picture of it). There was also at least one very uncommon person wandering around. But it was really fun and not something we had expected on this trip.

Saturday was the return trip to the airport after lunch in an old fashioned soda fountain with Bryce and Dena and Jason and Katie (the friends from Friday night). With the late arrival in Vegas, we got a motel room there and took the shuttle back to St. George on Sunday when Jennifer picked us up. Like I said, it was a really fun vacation and we appreciate the chance to visit Bryce and Dena (and Zoey!) and see their new place. Roanoke is a great place to visit, and we highly recommend it.

Zoey's goodbye face