We Did Something Dumb In the First Two Days!

Day 1 in the van was pretty straightforward, with minor hiccups. We finished final packing and loading from my parents’ house around 9:30 in the morning and bid a very emotional (temporary) farewell to our dog. Our cat was too busy licking his butthole to care that we were leaving.

We hit the road with a lump in our throat - about the dog, not about the cat’s butthole - and felt the unfettered excitement of the unknown that lay ahead of us. About 45 minutes later a pebble popped up and cracked our windshield.

But we pressed on, undeterred. We reached Marietta, Ohio, around 1:00 in the afternoon. I had gone to college there my freshman year and hated it. I transferred after that year and had minimal nice things to say about the town. Turns out I was just a dumb teenager, because it’s lovely. We sat near the Muskingum River and watched a high school rowing competition (sort of - they took like 30 minutes between races so we didn’t see much), grabbed some frozen custard from a little shop, and read some plaques about how Marietta was the first permanent settlement after the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Kinda cool.

(This is where I would insert a photo if we had good enough wifi, but we don't.)

As rain approached we hopped back in the van and headed for West Virginia in hopes of finding  campsite before dark. Luck was on our side, and our campsite had one spot remaining when we pulled in. We cooked on our stovetop, set up our tent to show that the site was taken for future days, ate, and went to sleep in what was pleasantly uneventful circumstances.

But the real story here is day 2. 

It was a rough night of sleep for both of us, but that’s not a big deal. We got up and decided to try a couple of small trails at the campsite. One simply disappeared in the woods about 1000 feet in and the other disappeared close enough to the New River that we were able to sit on the banks and watch the morning fog lift into nothingness for 20 minutes or so. The bluebell wildflowers on the way back to camp were icing on the cake. 

We got into Peg and headed for a visitor’s center. There are two in New River NP - a northern and a southern center. We were 28 minutes from each of them when we got cell signal, so we randomly chose the southern one.

Closed indefinitely due to covid.

We then went to the Grandview area, as the signs outside of the closed visitor’s center suggested that it was nice for hiking and scenery. It was really nice for both. We did a lovely hike that took us along the bottom of a cliff-face for a bit over half-a-mile and then flattened out to follow a crest out to another lookout point. It was just delightful, and a really nice way to start our advanture. 

By the time we got back to Peg we were about 6-7 miles into our day and felt like that was sufficient for our out-of-practice legs. We decided to go to a place called Tamarack, which was something of a craft fair/flea market that was advertised as one of the finest shopping destinations in West Virginia. I was hoping we could spend an hour or two perusing its stalls. It was basically a circle of maybe 10 shops, most of which were selling very nice and insanely expensive artworks. A wood carving of an otter? Cute as hell. Not worth the $4500 price tag. Tiny jams and jellies were $5 a jar, glass figurines abound, and the “cafeteria” was sold out of the only decent vegetarian items, so we lasted about 8 minutes at Tamarack.

Not to be defeated, we hit the travel center nearby for Quizno’s. It was closed. Permanently. 

OK, so it’s been an up and down kind of day. That’s OK. We were now faced with the decision of what to do: it was 3:00 and if we went back to the campsite, we’d have no cell signal and commit to just relaxing the rest of the day. That seemed like a decent option, so we headed back, but passed our campsite to see the one at the end of the road and find out what was down there.

It was a 20 minute drive to get to the next one along this gravel road. We were...surprised. But upon arrival, it was really lovely. There’s a lightly-graded 5 mile trail along a stream, a pleasant bridge overlooking said stream, and a campsite down near the river, which the stream feeds into. We decided that we’d come back here in a day or two, but as it was nearing 4:00 we wanted some food.

Back along the gravel road, we got to our campsite, Grandview Sandbar. But the driveway down to the campsite was kind of parallel to the road we were currently on, except in the opposite direction we were coming from. That turn was going to be really tight. Unfortunately I didn’t realize this until it was too late. 

Basically we had a Y shaped situation where we were turning from the right-arm of the Y to the left, and it was slightly downhill. Beyond the left arm of the Y was about 25-30 feet of more or less straight down. Not really where you want to be in your van, particularly not on day 2 of a months-long adventure. 

Simple, right? Just back up and try again.

Nope. The two portions of gravel road diverged just enough where I got caught that the gravel was loose and steep and...we got stuck. 

Getting stuck is rough, yes, but getting out is usually as simple as rocking back and forth to build up the momentum needed to get out. Unfortunately when there’s only about 2 feet between you and a small cliff, rocking back and forth is not a great option. I did it one time and thought I’d created enough space to continue my turn forward, so I let off the gas, despite Jenna’s urging to just plow backward. This was a mistake, as I just settled back into the same problem. 

(This is where I would post another photo, but again, not enough wifi or cell service. Bummer. You can trust me though, it was ridiculous.)

(Actually, this might work. Just imagine it's me driving and it's a van.)

Some kindly strangers arrived in a small pickup truck and asked how they could help. They had a tow-chain and tried to yank us out, but to no avail. They did, however, pepper the back of Peg with gravel. I will never understand how none of our windows shattered. 

More people showed up: the two girls from the Grand Canyon, a mom and her son of maybe 9 years, the two girls who were with the two guys in the small truck, the two older women who were coming up from the campsite. Now we started throwing sticks and floor-mats under the back tires, trying to get something - anything - to give us a little traction. We still just kept rocking back and getting almost nowhere. 

This is a good time to mention how stupid I felt. Very very stupid. Jenna was terrified, obviously, and most of the people watching/helping were having a really good time with all of this.

After a solid 15-20 minutes of this nonsense, we rocked juuuuuuust enough to get free and get the van straightened out enough to safely continue down the road to the campsite. No one let us pay them back or cook them dinner or anything like that. The only favor we were allowed to return was that the guy with the truck - who was basically the godsend in all of this - needed some electrical tape to fix his brake line. We had some, so I told him to just keep the whole roll.

What a day.

Turns out that both the truck-group and the women from Arizona were coming to this campground.

For SOME reason, neither group chose the site next to ours.

Weird.