NC to VA to WV

Map of this blog's locations click this link to open the map

With the end of our stay in Brevard North Carolina, our next scheduled stop is in Martinsburg West Virginia but we have 3 nights to fill between them. The most direct route is about a 460 mile drive but when we investigated camping options along the way, we decided to take a less direct route and stop at a couple Elks Lodges we have not visited before. This will add about 80 miles to the journey but we hope it will be a good decision. The first lodge is in Mount Airy NC about 200 miles away. We have camped in the area back in 2021 for 5 nights but were at a campground in town. This lodge does not have any camping services but does have a fairly large parking lot that is fairly flat so it should work for our one night stay.

We arrived before the lodge was open for the day and we knew rain was expected later in the afternoon so we decide to head into downtown Mt Airy to check things out. When we were in the area before we had done lots of hiking in the surrounding mountains and had driven thru downtown but had never really checked it out up close. There are a few Adventure Labs in town but we choose to stick with just the one based on Andy Griffith. He was born here and based the town of Mayberry in his “The Andy Griffith Show” on life in Mt Airy. To say the town has become Mayberry would be an understatement. We walked all around town and were amazed at how many of the shops were dedicated to the show in some way or another. We could have taken a ride around town in one of the classic police cars similar to those that Barney used to drive. Some shops simply sold souvenirs with Mayberry stamped on them. I could have even gotten my hair cut at Floyd’s Barber Shop! The demand for all things Mayberry seemed to be quite high because the streets were full of visitors just like us.

Where's Barney Fife?

Mayberry Courthouse

Andy and Opie

Floyd's Barber Shop

As the rain moved in, we headed back to the lodge to let them know we would be staying in the parking lot for the night. We were parked next to the pool which looks like it hasn’t been used in many years. We sit and chat with the locals a bit as we had a beer. One of the TVs over the bar had The Andy Griffith Show playing which seemed fitting for the location. It was quiet in the parking lot and we head out the next morning to our next stop - Roanoke Virginia.

It’s only 130 mile drive between the two lodges. We know this lodge does have one camping spot with 30 amp electric in the upper parking lot near their pool. We arrive on Saturday afternoon to find the upper lot full of cars. So we park in the lower lot and walk up to the lodge to see what is going on. There was already a rig parked in the spot with power and the couple dozen cars in the lot were from the members who are participating in a bocce tournament in the courts just off the parking lot. There was no way we would have been able to get to the RV spot even if it were available. We decide the lower parking lot will be find since we will have great solar coverage and the upgrade we made a year ago was to allow us to handle this sort of situation without any real drawbacks. We sit on the covered outdoor patio and talk with the local members while we enjoy a beer. This is the first time we have had Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale on draft.

We have never visited the Roanoke area before so we head out that afternoon to do a little sightseeing and find caches in a few of the nearby counties. Our travels that afternoon were not very thorough other than to find caches in 4 counties. I suspect there would be lots more to see and do in the area so we will have to consider coming back in the future.

Bicycle Artwork on Roanoke River Greenway Trail

Clock Tower in Salem Virginia

On Sunday, the weather was looking pretty good. The Blue Ridge Parkway runs just to the southeast of Roanoke. We have explored parts of the BRP out of Waynesboro, north of us and much of it down in North Carolina near Asheville.  But the sections in this part of Virginia were wide open. We had asked one of the locals at the bar, if we were to go out and explore the BRP from here, should we head north or south? They had suggested heading north so off we went. We took a meandering route to get there in order to find a couple more caches in Virginia counties. We enter the Blue Ridge from US 221 near milepost 106 and head north.

We don’t really have a specific destination in mind other than to enjoy the day and the great views from the overlooks. First stop is the Quarry Overlook at MP 101. The view to the south is of another row of mountains as well as a large quarry - apparently a dolomite quarry but not active on a Sunday morning.

View at Quarry Overlook on BRP

Closer View of Quarry

We continue north stopping at numerous overlooks. The plan to stop at each one only lasts so long when we remember that there are a LOT of them along the drive. We pick and choose which ones to pull into and which ones to get out of the car for.

Great Valley Overlook

Iron Mine Hollow Overlook

Montvale Overlook

Boblets Gap Overlook

Peaks of Otter View

Mills Gap and St James River

We eventually make it to the Peaks of Otter Visitor Center at milepost 85.6. We had brought lunch along so we ate that before we wander around this stop. Inside the building are lots of displays explaining about this part of the Blue Ridge. The name, Peaks of Otter, has three possible origins but nobody is certain where the name came from so we don’t get an answer to that question.

Visitor Center at Peaks of Otter

Display Inside

We hadn’t gotten in much exercise today on our drive so we looked for a short hike we could do along this part of the BRP. We weren’t looking for a challenging hike - just something to stretch our legs. We saw there was a 1 mile trail around Abbott Lake by the Peaks of Otter Lodge. It wasn’t clear there was a good way to get there from the visitor center other than to walk down the road so we drove over to a parking lot just east of the lake and climb up the hill that makes up the earthen dam creating the lake. There is an old cabin along the way that was pretty nice and with a great view of the lake and surrounding mountains.

Polly Woods Cabin

Lake and Mountain View

Besides the walk around the lake, we were curious about the lodge. We had visions of an old style lodge like we have seen as numerous national parks. The hotel at Many Glacier in Glacier National Park or Old Faith Inn at Yellowstone National Park came to mind. Let’s just say when we saw the lodge here, we were a bit disappointed. Don’t get me wrong. The setting is gorgeous and the rooms and associated restaurant might be nice but it looked more like a Super 8 Motel had been plopped here. The building seemed to lack any real character.

Lodge at Peaks of Otter

We proceed with the walk around the lake and find it a nice quiet walk that wasn’t very strenuous but with nice views. By now it was mid afternoon and we were sort of tired of the drive along the BRP. We head out and drive to find a couple more geocaches in nearby Virginia counties before heading back to our rig at the Elks Lodge. We had a good time and need to plan a longer stay so we can see more in the area.

Blooming Bush

View of Lodge from Other Side of Lake

Our next stop in Martinsburg West Virginia is just a little over 200 miles but it should be relatively easy drive since it is almost completely on Interstate 81 the whole way. At first glance, Martinsburg might not seem like a destination stop. There aren’t necessarily a lot of sightseeing stops nearby. The city is in a stretch of this expressway where you pass through 4 states in just under 40 miles - Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. Those traveling on the I-81 corridor may stop here for an overnight stay depending on their travel schedule but we are planning to stay for 2 weeks. Not only that, this will be our fourth time staying in the area!

What brings us back? The main draw of Martinsburg for us is pretty simple - geocaching! There is an extremely creative geocache hider here (with a handle of WVTim) that has worked with the local businesses and tourism bureau to turn the town into a very popular destination city for people like us that are addicted to geocaching. Our first visit was back in 2014 for 8 nights, then again in 2015 for a week to find and enjoy series of caches he had placed. Our last visit was near the start of our full time adventures in the fall of 2016. During that stop, the series he had placed were known as smart caches where the container actually had a small computer in them that permitted very unusual and ingenious hides. For more on this stop, check out the blog from our time there - Previous Blog Link.

The current series of caches he has placed are known as “Hidden Treasures”. There are 18 hides all over Berkeley county West Virginia. Unfortunately these aren’t gadget caches but they do take us to many interesting spots around the area. We need to find 16 of them and retrieve the code word in order to get a special geocoin for our efforts. We are heading back to where we camped over 7 years ago at the Nahkeeta Campground. There really isn’t a check-in area or a camp host per se. We made our reservation and paid for it online. The morning we are driving there, we get a text telling us what site number we have and when we pull in, there is a welcome note with a printout of the park rules. The campground isn’t anything real special but it is convenient to what we plan to do in the area. We figure by staying 2 weeks, we can save some money and get the weekly rate plus we won’t have to rush to complete the series.

Our first full day was going to have intermittent rain so we decide to head into northern Virginia to find geocaches in a few of the counties that we needed. Days like this will get us to places based more on creating a travel route that will get us into several counties. We will often try to pick caches that might sound interesting or places that might be scenic but sometimes we just end up at a pullout along the side of the road for a simple find. However, with the threatening weather, it should work out fine. Our first stop is at the State Arboretum of Virginia. This actually looked like it would be the type of place we could spend some time and explore. But it was clear from the dark clouds, Mother Nature had other plans. We walked around and found the caches we wanted and just made it back to the car before the rain started. We made stops at Shenandoah County Park and downtown Winchester Virginia to wrap up the day. Nothing too special but mission accomplished.

State Arboretum of Virginia

Overlook Pavilion

On Thursday, we head out to start finding some of the Hidden Treasure caches. The map below shows where they are located around the area. To give you an idea of the scale of the map, lines drawn around the outermost caches would create a polygon with a perimeter of 57 miles and an area of 190 square miles! Picking a route that will get us to them will take some doing and it becomes clear why we decided to spend a fair amount of time in the region so we don’t have to feel like we need to spend all day driving around the county to accomplish our goal. We also add in other geocaches hidden by WVTim into the mix. Our first stop was at a former smart cache but one of the ones we had not gotten to back in 2016 right behind a Hilton Hotel. I really wish we had come here because the concept looks quite unique. A copper wire bent into the shape of West Virginia has a wand with a metal eyelet on the end. The finder would need to move the eyelet around the state without touching the copper wire. It sounds like finders usually needed a dozen or more attempts to complete the task.

Map of "Hidden Treasure" Caches

Former Smart Gadget Cache

Another hide that was very creative was one right outside of a small mom and pop grocery store in Gerrardstown. Finding the cache container was easy enough but there was a trick to get to the logbook in order to sign in and claim the find. The old style newspaper dispenser has a secret hiding spot that wasn’t the obvious location inside where the newspapers would usually be. There was even a copy of an actual newspaper from 2015 with a front page article of WVTim and his geocaching gadget caches. It was fun driving all over the area and we were amazed at how many places we went to where we knew we had been there before doing previous iterations of his caches.

Geocaching - Read All About It!

Morgan Cabin

At Orr's Farm Market

One of the stops did get us a chance to actually get in a short hike. Poor House Farm park just west of Martinsburg used to be where locals that were down on their luck would end up - thus the name. Today some of the buildings are still standing and there is a large pond, disc golf course and ball fields. Our caches here were on the 2 mile perimeter trail that does have a rather steep climb to get to the upper portion of the park.

The Poor House?

Nice Barn

Pond and Fountain

View Along Perimeter Trail

We concluded our day at a hide on the grounds of a fairly new distillery. They weren’t open so we couldn’t taste their spirits but the old pickup truck out front was rather neat. One other cache at a church had a rather unique task required in order to figure out the combination for the padlock. There were 5 vials with contents that smelled. The goal was to place the vials in the correct order to solve the puzzle. The problem was that most of the smells we needed to differentiate were in the mint family. This is where my bad sense of smell hindered us but Chris’ good sense of smell got it figured out.

Old Pickup Needs TLC