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| Wineries! |
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| Potomac Eagle Dinner Train |
West
Virginia is open for business and #vacation #travel fun! Come on down!
NOTE:
Due to possible COVID-19 restrictions, which seem to be changing
daily, before you travel or book Anything, CALL every place you want
to go and make SURE they are open and operating! I have included
phone numbers for almost every place we went to and enjoyed in this
post. Although
I have also included website hotlinks, do NOT rely on websites and online reservation sites- they are often not kept up to date!
After Chef Dan and I had arranged for a friend to inn-and-pet sit so we could have a "Bucket
list" vacation in July and had it canceled on us at the last minute, we were brutally disappointed- I was actually in tears!
We decided that we HAD to get away, no matter what, and so I went
into serious Trip Planning Mode and mapped out a great 9-night
Road Trip loop thru our very own West Virginia! Our route
would take us from the mountains of Landgraff, McDowell County,
the southernmost county in West Virginia, where we have our Inn,
the Elkhorn Inn & Theatre, up to Romney, in Hampshire County, to ride the Potomac Eagle Dinner
Train, then a little farther north to Berkeley Springs, in Morgan
County, to "take
the waters" at America's First Spa. Then we'd drive down to Shinnston, in
Harrison County, to stay at Gillum House Bed-and-Breakfast and "sightsee", and then to Cass, in Pocahontas County, to take the Cass
Scenic Railroad. Our last stop before driving home would be Summersville, in Nicholas County,
to visit the Kirkwood Winery and Isaiah Morgan Distillery, a favorite
of ours from when we first came to West Virginia in 2002! Then we'd drive home through Princeton and Bramwell, in Mercer County. Along
the way we'd get to drive the Highlands Scenic Highway, see a
bit of tundra in the Ice Age Forest, stop at historic sites
and covered bridges, stay at some unique and special places, and do
tastings at every winery and distillery we could find! Not wanting to
be disappointed yet again, I called EVERY place we wanted to go and
made SURE they were open and operating BEFORE I booked- and I
strongly advise you to do the same! And then we jumped in our pick-up
truck and took off for places known and unknown! Every place
we stayed at was spotlessly clean, and we had NO negative issues
whatsoever! Dan and I are not kids- he is 73, and I am 61- and we had
a fabulous West Virginia getaway!
Part 1: To Rommey for the Potomac Eagle Dinner Train!
The
first day we drove from our Inn, the Elkhorn
Inn & Theatre: www.elkhorninnwv.com
in Landgraff,
WV, up to Romney, WV,
about 5.5 hours, to take the Potomac
Eagle Dinner Train: http://www.potomaceagle.com/
Tel: (304) 424-0736. This excursion
had been on our "railfan
bucket list" for years, as Dan did it many, many years ago (30!)
when they first started these excursions, but we had never done it
together! We
took their Sunset
Trough Dinner Trip which
leaves the Wappocomo Station at 6pm and returns at about 9pm, going southbound through the
famed Trough to Sycamore Bridge and back, approx. 35 miles
round-trip. We chose to do their "top
level" excursion, with seating and dining in the Superior
Club Car ($120.00/per
person), and enjoyed a fine, chef-prepared, 4-course dinner,
including Beef Tenderloin, in a beautifully maintained 1940s car, but
there are several alternatives that are less expensive, starting as
low as $54.00 per person. The excursion was a delightful experience,
as the scenery in this area is truly gorgeous, but just as we
prepared to go upstairs to enjoy the Trough in the outside car and
hopefully see some eagles, we got hit by furious rainstorm and had to
content ourselves with continuing to enjoy the gorgeous views from seats
inside our car!
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| On the Potomac Eagle Dinner Train! |
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| On the Potomac Eagle Dinner Train! |
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| View from our Dining Car! |
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| View from our Dining Car! |
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| View from our Dining Car! |
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| View from our Dining Car! |
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| The Storm- viewed from our Dining Car! |
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| View from our Dining Car! |
Dan
and I love to stop at wineries
and distilleries whenever we travel, so we can do tastings and buy
wine and booze to take home to extend the vacation! As you may recall
from earlier blog posts, we brought back many dozens of bottles of
wine, booze, foodie condiments, and spices from our trips to Israel,
China, Vietnam, Korea, Chile, and the Caribbean, as well as from our
USA road trips, and this trip was no exception- we stopped at Every
winery and distillery we could find along the way! We've found a good
GPS to be indispensable for locating wineries on our road trip
routes! Driving north up to Romney took us thru Staunton, VA, and
thanks to a sign on the highway, we peeled off for our first break at
the Ox-Eye
Winery Tasting Room: https://www.oxeyevineyards.com/ Tel:
540-849-7926 in
downtown
Staunton’s historic Wharf District, and
happily found it open!
Ox-Eye's focus is on crafting high quality, food-friendly wines from
grapes well-suited to the soil and climate of their farm in Virginia's Shenandoah
Valley, and after our wine tasting and a snack of stuffed grape
leaves, we bought several bottles to take with us!
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| Add caption |
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| Rockingham County, VA |
We
stayed for two nights at the South Branch Inn in Romney, which was
okay, but nothing special: www.southbranchinn.com
Tel: 304-822-2444. If we get back to Romney we will definitely stay
at the Koolwink
Motel: https://www.koolwink.com/ Tel: 304-822-3595, which
has been family owned since 1936 and is thus historic:
https://www.koolwink.com/our-history,
looked absolutely darling, and was highly recommended to us by a
number of local residents!
My
US Army Ret. husband and I are both history buffs who stop to read the historic marker signs we find along the way (so you're going to see a lot of them in my posts!), and very interested in Civil War history, specifically, and so
we were delighted to find the Taggart
Hall Civil War Museum and Visitor's Center: Tel: (304)
822-7477 in a local
guide we were looking at while having breakfast at the Romney
Diner: http://romneydiner.com/
- which is still
known by everyone in town as Shirley's - and is THE place to have breakfast in Romney! We called the museum
and learned that we needed an appointment to see the collection, so
we made one for right after breakfast, and thus got to have a private
viewing of their small but very interesting collection of artifacts
from the Civil War in Romney.
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| Taggart Hall |
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| Outside Taggart Hall |
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| Lost River |
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| Historic Marker Signs |
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| Horses along the way... |
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| More horses! Fun things seen along the way... |
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| Mechanicsburg Gap |
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| Oriskany Sand |
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| Romney: WV's First Town! |
The
museum also functions as the Romney Area Chamber of Commerce, and so had a
rack of tourism brochures; the helpful staff lady recommended a local
winery and a local distillery, and so off we went to both! Our first
stop was Flying
Buck Distillery, 20
minutes away in Augusta,
WV: https://www.facebook.com/flyingbuckdistillery/ Tel: (540)
550-5480,
at
Bigg Riggs Farm: https://biggriggsfarm.square.site
Tel: (304)
359-1120, where
we got to do a tasting of their yummy moonshines! We bought a jug of
their aged Naughty
Oak Spirit Whiskey,
as well as Apple
Pie Moonshine
and Raspberry
Starshine,
and Mason Jars full of strawberries
and melon in 'shine!
Calvin Riggleman of Bigg Riggs Farms is USMC; they have farm stands
selling excellent produce, and they make a lot of really delish
condiments and sauces; their Ramp Salad Dressing, which, sadly, they
no longer make, was the House Dressing at our Inn for years! (We now
have to make our own from the ramps we dig in the spring near our
Inn!)
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| YUM! Flying Buck 'Shines! |
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| Tasting at Flying Buck Distillery! |
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| Flying Buck's Still |
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| Flying Buck Distillery |
After
our tasting and shopping at Flying Buck, we drove 20 minutes in the
other direction to the Flying Squirrel Ranch and Farm and Rada
Appalachian Spirit Craft Distillery:
http://flyingsquirrelranch.com/
up on the
mountain in
Rada, WV. The
owner was delightful company, and let us taste everything, including
a yummy Nocino
he
made from Black Walnuts that's not for sale! He offers two "Glamping"
sites there, as well, one Forest, and one Meadow, which are listed on
airbnb, and he has The
Indie On Main Arts House in
Keyser, WV, too: www.TheIndieOnMain.com
(Don't laugh,
but the kids are presently planning a production of Rocky Horror
Picture Show! The "cutting
edge" sexual musical of my Wild 1970s Youth has become a classic,
beloved by 2020 teens! Let's Do The Time Warp again, shall we? LOL) After our tasting, we bought his
Rada Gin, made with local botanicals, Malted Aged Whiskey, and
Spiced
Rum!
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| Turn at the sign! |
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| At Flying Squirrel Rada Distillery |
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| Flying Squirrel Rada Distillery |
Next: WV Road Trip, Part
2: To Berkeley Springs to “take the waters”!
West
Virginia is open for business-, and #vacation #travel fun! Come on
down!
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