We got up early having to say farewell to our little apartment in Newark and hit the road. It was driving rain and not looking like a great day with thunder and lightning. Soon after hitting the road, we drove out of the rain. We drove several hours to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. This was where our minivan was waiting for us. We said goodbye to our friends, Gere and Betty, having had a wonderful adventure in the city together. We made one last stop for ice cream and then it was on the road to West Virginia.
The drive was mostly lovely. We drove through the mountains and hills of Appalachia with lots of green and beautiful sites at every turn. We had a couple of places with very slow traffic either from construction or a crash. And part of the way was full of lots and lots of trucks. There was also some rain and cloudiness. But, the scenery was gorgeous. We traveled through the Shenandoah Valley with the Blue Ridge Mountains on the left and the Appalachian Highlands on the right. Then, we turned into the Appalachian Highlands and went up and over the mountains into West Virginia. Today was the day we drove through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia.
We were both tired when we finally saw the sign for Lewisburg, which stated “voted the coolest small town in America.” We checked into our hotel, and then went to explore this coolest town, at least to grab a little supper. We saw that Fodor travel had included this main street in the top 25 best main streets in small towns in the US. We decided we had come to someplace kind of special.
Walking through the downtown, we stumbled on the visitor center where there was a flyer that said today was a local free bluegrass festival. We saw that it started about an hour and a half previous. We looked up on Google Maps and found the festival was about 4 miles away. We quickly regrouped, jumped in our car and headed off to the Skyline Bluegrass Festival on the River. We had no idea really what we were going to and drove through some roads that were recently very wet. We arrived at this beautiful park on an island with a amphitheater and stage right up against the beautiful West Virginia Hills.
For the next couple of hours, we settled in and listened to wonderful, authentic bluegrass music. it apparently had rained pretty hard just before we arrived, but the rain blew over and so the rest of the evening was gorgeous. The music was wonderfully magical.
Our goal of getting some food was obtained by being able to get some pulled pork from the “flying pig, real barbecue” food stand. Patti could not resist when one of the items on the menu was BBQ Sundae. It turns out this was in a basically Dairy Queen sundae plastic cup and included a layer of pulled pork, a layer of baked beans, a layer of coleslaw, and a dill pickle spear on the top. How could you resist that? So, we got our food, headed up to find a spot. It turned out that having a BBQ Sundae was a real conversation starter. Apparently, this wasn’t a common local food and all kinds of people were curious at what we were eating. We got into several really wonderful conversations with local people talking about the history of this festival. They had the first one of these festivals in the early 70s up on top of the local mountain on a farm with 1000 people gathering. One of the guys who was there talked about it being similar to Woodstock. There was a long break from the mid-80s until recently and the festival has had new life breathed into it.
People were so friendly, and we especially enjoyed hearing a beautiful song that most of the audience sang along about the West Virginia Hills. Apparently, this is one of West Virginia's official state songs, and it was all about looking up and enjoying the West Virginia Hills, which we could do right where we were sitting. Soon it was dark, and the fire flies came out, including drawing a little girl who is bound and determined to catch one. It was a magical, magical time where we were indeed, in the right place at the right time. We were sad to have to leave but were so happy that we really had enjoyed this wonderful local event.
We made a quick stop at Kroger’s grocery to restock our cooler having been in New York City, we not had to have the ice chest going during that time. We went to bed tired, but very satisfied. West Virginia is a lovely place and tomorrow we would go visit the latest of the US national parks. Before returning to our hotel, we filled the tank with the cheapest gas of the trip.
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