Um, Hello? I Am Back

I couldn’t think of a decent title for this post. Sorry. Now that that is out of the way…

Guess what I found?

The Paw Paw Tunnel! I was here once as a kid, like 30+ years ago. I thought it was cool and have always wanted to go back.

NOTE: if you want to see a bigger version of any of these shots, click on the picture. When done looking at the pic, use your browser’s BACK button to return to the blog.

Now I know Paw Paw (the town) is close to our WV place, I just didn’t know how to find the tunnel. Honestly, I hadn’t really looked. But now that our place is finished and we have so much time on our hands, we actually get to do cool stuff like explore.

I drove to the WV place on Thursday night with the doggie girls (I had Friday off). Since Hubby wouldn’t be arriving until Friday evening, I set out that morning to do a bit of exploring by myself. One of my goals was to find the tunnel.

I didn’t actually go to the tunnel. It’s only a 0.6 mile walk from the parking lot. But it was hot. My head was already all sweaty, hence the lovely hairdo, I was wearing black jeans and heavy leather biker boots. I thought of my friends who, the previous evening, had asked why I didn’t just take pictures of myself. Actually, I thought of that before I left and switched to an appropriate lens.

I found a cool road on the way to Paw Paw. From there, I went over to Berkeley Springs via yet another very cool back road. Both were a bit rough as far as road surface, but it felt like I was riding through a cool (as in temperature) forest. I didn’t spend much time in Berkeley Springs. It was hot, as I said earlier, and the traffic on 522 was backed up in both directions as far as I could see.

On the way to Berkeley Springs, I stopped near Great Cacapon (the town) and took some pics at the Cacapon River.

This is actually a train bridge.

This is the road bridge on Route 9 just outside of Great Cacapon.

As for the return trip, just west of Berkeley Springs on Route 9, I stopped at a neat overlook.

The town you see in the distance, to the left of the river, is Paw Paw. That’s the Potomac River, by the way. The land to the right of the river is in Maryland. I was actually headed almost back to Paw Paw via Route 9 this time.

I couldn’t decide which picture I liked best, with or without the bike, so I posted both.

Can you guess what happened after I left the overlook? I got rained on. It didn’t last long, though. And even though I got pretty wet, it actually felt kind of good. I dried out pretty quickly, too.

The next day (Saturday) Hubby joined me for another ride. We pretty much covered the same ground. On the way back, we went through Oldtown, Maryland. There are two things significant about Oldtown.

First, the C&O Canal passes through there. Locks 69 and 70 are VERY close by.

The above image is a shot of the canal below one of the locks (70?).

This shot shows the end of a lock and some more canal.

The second notable thing about Oldtown is the privately owned toll bridge. It’s made of wood. And it’s the only way to get across the Potomac without driving to either Cumberland, Maryland or Paw Paw, West Virginia, neither of which would be very convenient.

This is a view of the bridge from the Maryland side. The toll for motorcycles is $.25. Cars are more expensive at $.50. A lady sits in a little brick shack (toll booth) and holds out a tin cup to collect the money.

And here’s what it looks like as one approaches from the MD side.

Although we’d been here before, it didn’t register in my brain that the C&O Canal tow path is right there. It’s only about 10 miles from our house. Guess where we’ll be hiking and biking (bicycles) in the Fall?

I hope you enjoyed my not-so-little travelogue. I’ll try to be briefer next time.