An autumn trip to West Virginia

A dear friend of mine Linda Mills has a sister Marty in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia, and knowing how I love mountains and white water rivers, Linda had asked me to go visit Marty for years. I had already met Marty many times when she came to visit Linda here in Kingston Springs.

Last week we (Linda and I and another friend Patt Dillon) drove the ten hours to visit Marty. And what beautiful countryside West Virginia is this time of year! In contrast to Middle Tennessee, the leaves were already undergoing their colorful transformation on the West Virginia mountains.

Marty's lovely house is on top of a mountain with decks all around and beautiful views of other mountains. She has a sauna and a hot tub, and we each had our own bedroom and bath.

This is not Marty's house, but the inside of the Greenbrier Hotel.

Besides White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia has Salt Sulfur Springs, Blue Sulfur Springs, Green Sulfur Springs, Warm Springs, and Hot Springs, to name a few of the towns in that area. And the area is filled with resort hotels--some of which are a couple hundred years old. We visited the Homestead and the Greenbrier Hotels and were pretty much blown away by the large-scale beauty of the old buildings and the grounds.

We hiked the 2 and 1/2 miles Cascades Trail, filled with the most incredible natural beauty of waterfall after waterfall. Then we went to soak in the famous Hot Springs 200-years old sulfur bath house. Built over a bubbling hot springs from the tiniest seeps over volcanic rocks, the old wooden house was round with a view of the blue sky at its top. That late afternoon we four women floated in the baths for nearly an hour.

This is not us women, but just a picture of how large some of the rapids were!

On our last day there, we rafted the white water of the New River, which, despite its name, is actually the third oldest rivers in the world. The river itself is a class IV river, so we were brave to go on such a big river especially in mid-October. Thank the river gods that no one in our raft got flipped out. At the end of the 7-mile river trip, there was the most magnificent bridge spanning the New River. The New River Gorge Bridge is the third highest vehicular bridge in the United States and the fifth highest in the world.

All in all, 'twas a really a wonder-filled trip, and we made lasting memories and strengthened our already strong friendships.