Labor Day Road Trip Part 2

It's taking me much longer to get around to posting what I plan to post these days, but I'm back to the second leg of my Labor Day road trip. In part 1, Theresa and I took half a day to jog 70 miles through four states. It was a super-duper blast.

In the last episode of this journey, we ended up in a small town called Berkeley Springs and stayed the night. The next morning, we got up and jaunted over to another small town in West Virginia called Paw Paw. That's a funny name for a town, but if you know trees, you'll know it as the name of a tree for which the town is named.

We stopped in Paw Paw to get a drink and use the restroom. In the little service station, the only one in town so it was crowded with people, most of whom were in line for the restroom, we met a gentleman from our own neck of the woods. He was from East Berlin, Pennsylvania just a few miles up the road from our own home, but he hadn't lived there in 40 years! He had bought a farm in Paw Paw. He asked us if we had been to the tunnel. We had no idea there was a tunnel. So he pointed us the way--about a mile up the road, in Maryland--and we took a little excursion to see this:

A mile long tunnel that is a part of the C&O Canal system created in early American history. We didn't walk through it because my wife doesn't like tunnels.
Along the way to Paw Paw, however, we stopped at Prospect Peak and gawked at the Potomac River from on high. It's about midway between Berkeley Springs and Paw Paw.

The Potomac River at Prospect Peak, West Virginia. From this point, we could see Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Here's the historical marker:

After Paw Paw, we headed south toward a little town called Romney. It has some Civil War significance, so we thought we'd check it out. But we were diverted. We stopped at a small shop in Paw Paw to look around and someone in that shop told us about some trenches used during a Civil War battle just outside town. They told us to turn at a certain road, but I ended up turning too soon and we took a little detour through the mountains. It was a long, winding road. You know, the kind they write songs about.

Probably a good hour-and-a-half later, we ended up in Romney. If we had stayed in the main route, it would have been maybe 20 minutes. It was a beautiful drive, but weird.

I was never too worried, but I did get concerned slightly when the double yellow lines on the road disappeared. Just a little deeper drive and the road narrowed into one of those rural county roads you don't want to find yourself on after dark. It was not yet noon so I wasn't a bit afraid for my life. Nevertheless, we're driving along with Pennsylvania license plates in a state I'd never spent more than five minutes in, and I had no clue where we were. Fun times!

We drove around in Romney and decided there wasn't much to see, so we headed east toward Virginia. Why not?

We drove through the mountains and across the Shenandoah to a little town in Virginia called Strasburg. We stayed the night in Strasburg and caught this on my camera before leaving town the next day. I love street art, don't you?

Sunday morning, we awoke and headed toward a little town called Front Royal. The distance between Strasburg and Front Royal is only 14 miles, but it was Sunday and we had time to kill. So we stopped in a little town called Round Hill so my wife could shop in a little crafts shop. I took a picture of this:

In case you're wondering, it's a little figurine. I thought the craftsmanship was incredible. There were others, but this was my favorite one.

We made it to Front Royal, which, by the way, was my favorite part of the trip. It is a splendidly beautiful town. There was a quaint little restaurant there where we had lunch, and the woman in the visitor's center was super-friendly. She was so friendly I'd like to go back to Front Royal just to encounter her again. What they say about southerners is one-hundred percent true. They're as friendly as friendly can be. Let it be known.

I had such a great time in Front Royal that I forgot to take pictures. It is definitely some place I want to go back and visit. We left Front Royal and headed to Leesburg.

Funny thing, my wife Googled Leesburg, Virginia Welcome Center and it took us way off the beaten path to a national wildlife preserve outside of town. We got there right at 5 p.m., so it was almost closing time, and found out that wasn't what we wanted. So we drove back into town, ate dinner, and found a place to stay. The next day we got up and found the real visitor's center.

Leesburg's not that great for tourism. It's not that they have nothing to offer, they do. They just don't package it well. Certainly not as well as Front Royal. We found the visitor's center, nestled in the historic district between quaint shops. It was like they were trying to hide it. The lady running it was very nice, but the information she could provide on the town's historic walking tour left us wanting. My wife ended up finding a free audio tour online that the lady at the visitor's center didn't mention. That was very helpful.

There is quite a bit in Leesburg that has historic significance. Named for an ancestor to Robert E. Lee, it became a temporary U.S. government seat and was passed back and forth a few times during the Civil War. We completed the walking tour, and I managed to get a few good smartphone photos including these:

One of several monuments in Leesburg.

Mt. Zion UMC is the oldest continuing African-American Methodist church in Virginia.

We enjoyed Leesburg, but I think it pales in comparison to other sites we saw in both Virginia and West Virginia. We decided to head home just after lunch on Monday, Labor Day, and arrived back in Gettysburg around 2 p.m. I'm really looking forward to our next road trip.

All photos taken by me.

This post originally appeared at Narrative.

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