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| Summersville Lake |
West Virginia is open for business and #vacation #travel fun! Come on down!
NOTE: Due to possible COVID-19 restrictions, which seem to be changing daily, before you travel or book Anything, CALL every place you want to go and make SURE they are open and operating! I have included phone numbers for almost every place we went to and enjoyed in this post. Although I have also included website hotlinks, do NOT rely on websites and online reservation sites- they are often not kept up to date! Every place we stayed at was spotlessly clean, and we had NO negative issues whatsoever! Dan and I are not kids- he is 73, and I am 61- and we had a fabulous West Virginia getaway!
Our 9-night Road Trip loop thru West Virginia first took us from the Elkhorn Inn & Theatre in the southern mountains of Landgraff, in McDowell County, up to Romney, in Hampshire County, to ride the Potomac Eagle Dinner Train (see this post: https://southernwestvirginia.blogspot.com/2020/07/west-virginia-road-trip-come-on-down.html). Then we drove a little farther north to Berkeley Springs, in Morgan County, to “take the waters” at America’s First Spa: https://southernwestvirginia.blogspot.com/2020/07/west-virginia-road-trip-part-2-taking.html We next drove south to Shinnston, in Harrison County,
to stay at Gillum House Bed-and-Breakfast, meet Punjab the Camel, and sip some great whiskey: https://southernwestvirginia.blogspot.com/2020/07/west-virginia-road-trip-part-3.html We then drove south to Cass, in Pocahontas County, to take the Cass Scenic Railroad, enjoy a Kissing Bridge, and see the Ice Age Forest: https://southernwestvirginia.blogspot.com/2020/07/west-virginia-road-trip-part-4-cass.html
West Virginia Road Trip! Part 5: Summersville & Fayetteville for wine & food with a view!
Our final stops on this trip before heading home were Summersville and Fayetteville, specifically to go to the Kirkwood Winery and Isaiah Morgan Distillery: https://kirkwood-wine.com/ Tel: 1-888-4WV-WINE rightoutside Summersville,the first winery and distillery we visited in West Virginia, back in 2002! At that time Dan was deployed to West Virginia by FEMA, following the floods that had devastated southern West Virginia, and we were staying in Beaver, WV. On Dan’s days off we went and did all the fun, “touristy” things one does in West Virginia, including white water rafting, ATVing, taking train excursions, camping, fishing, and horseback riding, and although Dan was no lover of wine back then, I convinced him to “humor” me and go to the nearby Kirkwood Winery. Kirkwood is famous for their fruit and uniquely West Virginian vegetable wines, and we both fell in love with them the first time we visited, when we met the late Rodney Facemire who founded it. Among their truly unique West Virginia wines are Ramp Wine, which Chef Dan uses to marinate meat and to make reduction sauces, Ginseng, Dandelion, and Rhubarb Wines! They also have a large variety of grape and fruit wines made from the bounty of their vines and orchards. In creating the Isaiah Morgan Distillery, Rodney Facemire brought the “naughty” Appalachian tradition of the illegal moonshine still into the legal daylight, obtaining the license for the nation’s smallest still in 2002. He conceived the vision of mini-distilleries, formed a team of government and business leaders, and created what has truly become a fabulous industry for the state of West Virginia, now nationally famous for our legal‘shine! Isaiah Morgan makes Moonshine, Rye Whiskey, Grappa, and now a fine, aged Bourbon, and after indulging in another yummy tasting, we bought a selection of their wines, as well as their Bourbon, and a bottle of Grappa for our Italian Inn-Sitter! We had Kirkwood wines at our wedding at the Elkhorn Inn, and our guests all loved them, and a few years ago we went to one of their fun, fall Grape Stomping Festivals, where we got in the vat and stomped grapes with our bare feet like Lucy and Ethel did on I Love Lucy! (Unfortunately the Grape Stomping Festival has been canceled for this fall, but we are trusting it will be back next year- it’s truly another West Virginia “Must-Do”!)
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| Whine and Whiskey Tasting at Kirkwood Winery |
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| Kirkwood Winery |
Tooling around Summersville and Fayetteville, we drove across the famed New River Gorge Bridge several times: https://www.nps.gov/neri/planyourvisit/nrgbridge.htm, and at one point finally stopped to get a look at it from afar!
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| New River Gorge Bridge, peeking thru the trees! |
The Bridge has spectacular views of the river on both sides, but it’s impossible to get a good photo while driving across it, as all you can see from a car window is the darn barricade!
The Bridge is on Route 19, just north of Fayetteville, and when it was completed, in 1977, it turned a harrowing, 40-minute drive down narrow mountain roads and across one of North America’s oldest rivers into a one minute drive! The Bridge is famed for being both the longest steel span in the western hemisphere, and the third highest in the United States, and it even has a day of its own: Bridge Day- the 3rdSat. in October! On Bridge Day, the bridge is open to pedestrians and hosts a wide variety of activities, including BASE jumping, rappelling, music, and more, but unfortunately it has been cancelled this year: https://officialbridgeday.com/ You CAN, however, take a Bridge Walk, which is a guided tour of the New River Gorge Bridge from the catwalk 25’ beneath the Bridge:https://bridgewalk.com/ Tel: (304) 574-1300 – something we intend to go back and do!
We stayed in Fayetteville for two nights at The Historic Morris Harvey House:
https://www.morrisharveyhouse.com/ Tel: (304) 250-7090, a very pretty, 3-story Queen Anne-style house dating from 1902 that is on the National Register of Historic Places. We stayed in their Harvey Room, one flight up, which has a half-bath within the room, and a full bath with an antique claw-foot tub next door.
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| The Historic Morris Harvey House |
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| The Harvey Room |
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| Southside Junction Tap House |
https://adventuresonthegorge.com/adventures/zip-line-aerial-adventures/treetops-zip-line-canopy-tour/ (totally awesome and wonderful, and an Absolute “Must-do”!),and it was still a relatively small operation; Smokey’s was rather elegant, with fine dining… It’s now a huge operation, and the new Smokey’s is a humongous, family-style restaurant… Dan had their ribs, and I had their Brisket, with two tasty sauces, including a novel White Alabama BBQ Sauce, and we ate outside on their deck and enjoyed the beautiful sunset view over our plastic cups of wine, and it was very nice… but it wasn’t as we remembered… Is anything, ever? 😉
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| Dinner at Smokey’s on the Gorge |
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| Summersville Lake |
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| Summersville Lake |
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| Above Summersville Lake |
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| Summersville Dam |
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| Above Summersville Dam |
We then Had to go see the amusing Summersville Lighthouse at Summersville Lake Retreat:
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| Summersville Lighthouse |
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| A doe and her fawns! |
While many of the roads we traveled were devoid of cars, and we often felt like the only people out and about, we did see a Lot of deer on this trip- basically everywhere we went! And they were fearless deer, totally unafraid of people, and several posed for photos, too!
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| Deer! |
That afternoon we found a fun “private club” bar in Fayetteville: Jaybird and Charlie’s Pub: https://www.facebook.com/jaybirdandcharliespub/ Tel: (304) 574-0822and had drinks at their bar and outside on their patio, as well. Jaybird was really nice, and we were made to feel very welcome; his bar has pool tables and foosball, and this is definitely the place that would be our “Cheers” if we lived in Summersville! We’ll definitely return if we get back to the area!
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| G&Ts at Jaybird & Charlie’s |
Our “foodie find”of this tripwas that evening, when we had dinner at Wanderlust Creative Foods (formerly New River Curry): https://www.facebook.com/newrivercurry/ Tel: (304) 574-3111in downtown Fayetteville, a charming, informal, friendly, not expensive, chef-driven restaurant serving inventive, international, gourmet-level cuisine! Dan and I shared three yummy appetizers for dinner and left stuffed: their Samosas, served with an excellent Mango Chutney, delicious Sisig, caramelized pork belly sauteed with ginger, garlic and Thai Chilies and topped with a fried egg, and scrumptious seared Gulf Shrimp in a Sherry Reduction Sauce, garnished with seasonal microgreens. I had a unique and delicious Thai fruit drink, as well, that included gelled basil seeds, which I’d never seen in West Virginia before, and it was so good that I got one to take with me! If you get to Fayetteville, THIS is where you want to eat!
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| Sisig – Carmelized Pork Belly |
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| Shrimp in a Sherry Reduction Sauce |
We did a leisurely drive home the next day, taking the “back roads” through the mountains, stopping to see pretty places, historic sites, and fun things along the way…
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| West Virginia… |
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| The cutest playhouse! |
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| Big Lime |
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| Greenbrier County |
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| Chainsaw Sculpture Adorableness! |
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| Big Beaver Creek |
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| Camp Jones |
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| Napoleon Bonaparte French |
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| Engagement at Falls Mills |
…and passing through Oak Hill in Fayette County, whose claim to fame is apparently as the place where Hank Williams was pronounced dead…
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| Hank Williams Memorial |
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| Hank Williams Memorial |
We stopped for lunch at Kimono Japanese Seafood & Steak House in Princeton, WV in Mercer County:
https://www.facebook.com/Kimono-Japanese-Seafood-Steak-House-157785594261594/ Tel: (304) 487-8008. Kimono is ourfave local restaurant, and we ended our WV Road Trip with an epic seaweed salad-sushi-sake feast! We Love this place, still amazed, after 18 years, that our landlocked southern West Virginia mountains boasts a sushi bar that beats every place we’ve eaten at in the USA, including NYC, where I’m from!
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| Sushi-Saki feast at Kimono! |
We then drove through Bramwell, also in Mercer County: https://www.bramwellwv.com/ ,
famed as “Home of the Coal Baron Millionaires” for its many historic mansions, and stopped to photograph the train trestle, and again to photograph a Norfolk Southern train chugging ’round the bend through Keystone…
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| Train Trestle in Bramwell |
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| NS Railroad coming thru Keystone |
and before we knew it, we were back home in Landgraff, at the Elkhorn Inn: http://www.elkhorninnwv.com
Tel: 304-862-2031, and unpacking all the wine and booze and foodie treats we’d picked up along the way! 🙂
West Virginia is open for business, and #vacation #travel fun! Come on down!
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| Our West Virginia Souvenirs! |
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| NS Railroad coming thru Keystone |
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| NS Railroad coming thru Keystone |
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