We took the Jeep to Calvin for repair and returned to Joyce’s house. We decided to hike in the New River Gorge today. We went to the Long Point Trailhead and discovered about 16 cars in the parking lot from several states. The trail has been upgraded and the wet area at the beginning is now a dry causeway. Although there were a lot of people and their dogs on the trail, it was still a good walk. Some parts of the trail had been rerouted a bit and improved.
There was no time alone at Long Point and shockingly (or not) some people were hogging the overlook while busily using their cell phones. Gayle walked out to the point and took a photo of the view and also of the tadpoles in a hole in the rock. Since the hoggers didn’t move, other people courteously took turns going out on the rock. When we got back to the parking lot, we observed the hoggers getting into their car from Maryland (probably from Baltimore).
We then drove to Thurmond via back roads and explored Dunglen and Stone Cliff areas. The river was beautiful; wide and calm with well spaced gentle rapids. There were 2 or more places to launch boats on the river. We explored the town of Thurmond which is basically a visitor center (closed) and three old but interesting buildings along a railroad track. There were a surprising number of tourists in Thurmond from a smattering of states.
Then we explored a parking lot for various trailheads and we definitely want to go back and walk these trails. On the way back to the main road, we stopped at a nice waterfall along the way.
We went out to the Meadow River Estates entrance to see the moon rise just after sunset. Joyce cooked vegetables and we had a nice dinner and an early bedtime.