New River Gorge National Park and Preserve (5/19/25)

 Well, honestly I had this post 99% ready to go and then took another look at my timeline and my pictures and realized I had missed one of our stops completely. Sometimes that doesn’t matter- if nothing of significance happened, I might skip a stop anyway, but this one I needed to write about. So, hope you read the post about Pickett CCC Memorial State Park. It wasn’t exactly on our way to New River Gorge, but it was worth the slight detour.

Moving on:

New River is actually one of the oldest rivers in the world, and is different than most rivers because it flows south to north.

By the 1800s the coal mining here had brought both people and the railroad- all of which had a huge affect on the ecological health of the area. Mining flourished in this area for over 80 years before it came to an end.

For 21 years in the early 1900s there were clashes between miners and the mine owners over working conditions. The miners fought for collective bargaining and for unionizing. Of course, the owners fought against it.  One of the possible origins of the term “red neck” comes from those clashes. Miners who were sympathetic to the pro union movement would wear red bandanas.

Eventually the mines played out and mining stopped, bringing in recreation.

In 1978 the river was designated a national scenic river, it’s first National Park Service designation. In 2020 it was reclassified to New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, making it our nation’s 63rd national park, and the 51st one I have visited.

We only had two days to explore this park and it actually should have been one. I pulled a rookie mistake and double booked us by accident. I thought we were supposed to be in North Carolina on May 15, but we were supposed to be there May 14th. Ooops, Oh well.

Our first day we checked out the visitor center where we learned about the bridge. The New River Gorge bridge was completed in 1977 and alleviated a major traffic problem. Prior to the bridge’s existence, the drive time from one side of the gorge to the other was 45 minutes. Once the bridge was finished, the drive time was cut to about 60 seconds.

The roadway is 876 feet above the river. ..

Our hike of the day was about 2.7 miles along the Endless Wall trail. The map showed several lookouts along the way, but most were overgrown. We did finally come to Diamond Point Overlook, which was worth the walk.

The weather for our second day called for wind and on and off rain. We elected to do the scenic drive, starting from the furthest point and working our way back.

Again we started at a visitor center, and this one had interesting displays about water conservation ( a bit of a pet peeve of mine). The display showed dozens of bottles of water, and wasteful ways we use it….

There are quite a few pull offs and some short hikes along the way.  We started out high above the river, looking down on the water.

 

I had asked a ranger about bald eagles and she told us where the nest is so we could look for it. Its on an island in the river- great protection for them. The nest, and the parents, are in this picture. I didn’t bring my good camera so I was using my new phone. Interestingly, we shared the location of the eagles with another couple and he immediately got out a huge camera with a huge lens and said he has been taking wildlife pictures for decades. And I thought, me too, but unless I am going to get a really cool unique shot of something, I have hundreds of pictures of bald eagles.

The road eventually led down to river level, giving us a totally different perspective. This river is ripping right now.

A boardwalk takes you out to a good view of Sandstone Falls. There has been so much rain and flooding lately that the falls are not that picturesque.

In fact, the backyards of some of the campsites are completely under water. In the summer, the river is a hub of recreational activity- rafting, and kayaking are popular activities. But not right now.

So, one day late, we headed to North Carolina.

Bras d’Or Lake (07-21-13)

Pronounced B’Door Lake, the lake is really an inland sea, with part fresh water and part salt water.  We moved over to the lake, and the town of Baddeck (Ba-DECK) to explore the other half of the Cabot Trail.

We took one day and drove around the island until we pretty much reached the point where we had left off while exploring from the other side.  There are quite a few small fishing villages along the way, but not much else.  A few restaurants, I guess,  and of course some gift shops. 




We were originally going to stop and hike, but decided that it would be a long ride to get to the tip of the island and we might run out of time- so we decided to leave the hike till another day- bad idea, I guess, since it never happened.


We stopped at one of the several beachy areas, and while Paul wandered around looking for sea glass, I set the camera on burst mode and tried to get pictures of the Northern Gannet.

This white bird with black tipped wings, nests on nearby islands, and is a lot of fun to watch.  They soar above the water, and when they see a fish below the surface, they literally dive bomb down into the water.

They fold their wings completely back when they dive. It’s really hard to get a picture because a) they don’t soar too close to the shore, and b) I can’t actually see them through the viewfinder, so I just point the camera where they might be headed, and hope for the best.  I didn’t do too well getting pictures, but it was fun to watch them. You’d have to click on this picture to really see the bird.

“A Dead Man Tells No Tales” – Alexander Graham Bell

Baddeck was also home to Alexander Graham Bell, so we visited the Bell Museum.  Quite handy that it’s a National Historic Place, so our National Park pass got us in for free. By the way, the quote refers to the fact that while testing airplanes, Bell wanted planes that could land on water, so that when/if they crashed, the pilot would survive.  I thought there was some interesting information in the museum, but it was presented in a very dry and uninteresting way.  Although he is obviously known for inventing the telephone, (he gave all but 10 of his shares of Bell Telephone stock to his wife as a wedding present), he had numerous other inventions, and was a founding member of The National Geographic Society.


With the temperatures soaring yet again, hiking came off the “to do” list.  We headed instead to the Highland Village Museum.  With only 3 cars in the parking lot, we were a little skeptical, but went ahead anyway.
 

This is a Living History Museum detailing the lives of Scottish immigrants, from before they left Scotland, until the early 1900s.  Most of the buildings are original. This interpreter did a fabulous job of describing the conditions in Scotland that led whole families to leave the country.  I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with her, even the fact that she sometimes said things in Gaelic, then translated to English.

The afternoon temperature reached 90+ degrees so we elected to take a sail on the Amoeba, a small sailboat that does a 1.5 hour tour of the harbor area.  It was a little cooler on the water, which was very nice indeed!

The captain had a great sense of humor, even pulling out a Sailing for Dummies book to “look something up”, as we got underway.  He had great local knowledge and pointed out things like Alexander Graham Bell’s estate. 

 

   My favorite part, though, was the eagles!
He had fish to toss overboard for the eagles to get, so we got close up views of the birds swooping down and grabbing their treat.  Once again, it was practically impossible to get pictures of them grabbing the fish, with the boat moving and the sun shining, but I did the best I could.

He said that of course, the eagles recognize the boat, and watch for him to toss something for them.  One day, on his first day back from the Caribbean, he didn't have any fish to throw, but they circled the boat, waiting, so he tossed them a piece of pizza.  They seemed happy with it.

I did get a few decent pictures of the birds soaring directly over our head.


















We've now moved on to Sydney, Nova Scotia. where we’ll spend only one night.  Tomorrow we board the ferry to Newfoundland, and you’d think we were headed to a different planet.  We went to the liquor store, Wal-Mart , two grocery stores, the auto parts store and fueled up the truck.  We could probably live for 3 months with the amount of food we have!

Autumn arrives in the U.P.

Brrr......The leaves have started changing colors up here, and the  last few days the temperatures have been in the 40s at night and the 50s during the day.  Maybe that wouldn't be so bad if the wind wasn't whipping as well.  One perk is that we have a chance to use our "winter" recipes- meatloaf, soups, Chili, etc.  instead of cooking the same old things on the grill. 
        We have been in the town of Thompson,  in Indian Lake State Park, exploring this area of the U.P.

Our first stop was " Big Spring"  which is the biggest fresh water spring in Michigan.  10,000 gallons of water a minute gush out of this spring, and you can see the constant swirling of the sand on the bottom of the pond.  Access to the spring is really cool.  There is an operator powered raft- so I cranked a huge wheel and that propelled the raft along a cable, out into the pond.  There is an observation "hole" in the wooden raft where you can look down and watch the water bubble and swirl.  The water is 45 degrees and crystal clear but appears bright green...

    Yesterday we headed to the ghost town of Fayette.  (Several pictures of it and of "Big Spring" are in my "Recent Pictures".) Fayette was a thriving Iron smelting town,  in the late 1800s. Unfortunately it only thrived for about 24 years, after which the company who built the town decided that it wasn't cost effective to remove the iron, so they closed up shop, abandoning the town.  In the late 1950s the state bought the land and have been slowly restoring some of the buildings.  So many of the buildings are still standing that it really gives a snapshot of what a small town would have looked like back then.  We enjoyed poking around and learning about the people who had lived there. The town has a small harbor, and the weather was so lousy, there were several boats tied to the dock waiting for the wind to die down.  We talked to one of the owners, who was anxious to leave, but not anxious to brave the waves out on the lake.  Eventually he did leave and we watched him bounce around for a bit- but he made it fine, as far as we could see.
  I also saw my first Bald Eagle yesterday but of course I didn't have my camera with me.  He was flying around our campground, which is right on a lake.  As soon as I saw him, I knew he was an Eagle, not an Osprey.  I looked for him later, and several times today, but no luck. I'll look again tomorrow before we leave, but we are headed to Copper Harbor, MI so maybe I'll have better luck there.
    Last night we looked at our schedule for the next few weeks and since we only have 3 weeks before we need to be back in MI for my surgery, we are unfortunately going to skip Voyageurs National Park in MN- its even further north than here, and will probably be pretty cold, especially since most of the park consists of  lakes.   Instead we are going to head to Wisconsin once we leave the U.P.
   Today we went to Seney National Wildlife Preserve.  They have a visitors center that was very well done and informative about the various wildlife.  However, we learned we were 2 days too late to see the loons, who have apparently all just left  due to the cold weather.  Ugh.  We did the 7 mile drive through the park, but elected not to hike or bike because the wind was still whipping and its just raw outside.  From there we drove through the small town of Curtis and then just headed back home after doing a little food shopping.
  We have no TV stations at this park, so we rented movies for the past two nights.  Not tonight though, so Paul is prowling around looking for things to do.  He just managed to fix our favorite pair of binoculars.  We have no idea how the eyepieces got out of alignment, but they are fixed now!