Today we were back on the road, continuing our westward trek. We started this morning in Grantsville at what is probably the weirdest RV park we have ever stayed in. There were probably 100 trailers there but only two people besides us were seen. We jumped onto westbound I-68 and immediately encountered the up and down required to cross the multiple mountain ridges of western Maryland and eastern West Virginia. One minute we would be at 800 foot elevation, quickly climb to 2000+/- foot elevation only to dive down to 800 feet just a few miles down the road. This lumpy program continued until we made it to Morgantown, West Virginia. In Morgantown, we turned southwest on I-79 and started traveling parallel to the ridges and the road configuration turned from up-and-down to back-and-forth. West Virginia is quite mountainous.
Normally we prefer to use old federal and state highways to get from place to place, shunning interstate highways to the greatest extent possible. However, here in West Virginia, using rural highways is not really practical for us due to their circuitous nature and lousy mapping that does not distinguish between paved and dirt roads. We may have a load of time to travel but we don’t have enough to travel on rural roads in this part of America. We have been gazing at maps to find good back road access to the places we want to go and the only thing we really found out is that West Virginia has a very strange shape. To see the shape, close your right hand into a fist with the fingers toward you. Now extend your middle finger. Now extend your thumb. That looks just like the shape of WV.
Somewhere below the life line, we pulled off near Roanoke. There is a Roanoke in Virginia next door but it definitely is not the same place. We drove into the Stonewall Jackson State Park which is actually more like a resort. There is a very nice hotel, a large and gorgeous lake, a big store, a campground with full hookups and gorgeous surrounding scenery. It is by far the most expensive state park in which we have stayed but we don’t anticipate being here more than a couple days so we’ll make it without going bankrupt.