Memories....the old and the new (Part 1)

For our anniversary trip this year I wanted to take Rob down a memory lane from my own childhood. We started out not really knowing where we were going but knew what direction we wanted to take. My first mistake was leaving the directions my sister gave me at home. My second mistake was bringing the new road atlas instead of the old one. And my third mistake was following the GPS. The only mistake Rob made was letting me plan the trip!!

Our first stop was Old Town MD. The story of the C&O Canal is very interesting. The canal towpath trail runs 185 miles along the Potomac River, from Washington DC to Cumberland Maryland. You can walk or bike it and camp at the "primitive" campgrounds along the way.

This is Lock house #70 at Old Town

 

 

...and this is the canal

 

 

You can see the towpath (lower pic) on the left side of the canal. 

If we were bikers and campers that would be a future trip,

but, sadly,we are neither.

 

 

Our next stop was to pay 1.50 to cross the Low Water Bridge. This bridge is very unique because

it has no sides. Buses and tractor trailers also use this bridge. It is the only way to get to West Virginia unless you go the long way around through Cumberland MD.

 

As I was driving along I realized we were going the wrong direction to see our next attraction.

Rob said, "turn around, we have all day" a phrase he will live to regret! We turned around and started back toward the bridge. We came to a road that went up into a mountain, Rob suggested we try that road, "it has to lead somewhere". It did!! After 5 miles of meeting one way traffic, twisting and winding ever upward we came to a gated community and a "no trespassing" sign. Turning around we followed the familiar road back down the mountain and once again paid 1.50 to cross the bridge.

We found Paw Paw W VA about 12 miles down the road.

I had heard a lot about the Paw Paw Tunnel from my siblings, but I don't ever remember being there.

 

 

 

We walked 6/10 of a mile to the tunnel.

 

 

The tunnel was about 6/10 of a mile long.

Outside it was very hot and sticky but inside the tunnel the temperature dropped quite drastically.

We weren't quite half way through when  I was ready to turn around.

This was looking back at the entrance...

 

 

...and this was looking at the finish!

 

We walked back to the car and continued to travel away from Paw Paw. At this point the GPS could find no matches for the addresses I was putting into it. Our trusty atlas didn't even have the towns listed that we had already visited. We were traveling by instinct and our instinct told us we were going to have to turn around again. Somewhere along the way I quit hearing, "turn around, we have all day" and I started hearing, "just so we don't have to cross that bridge again"

Well we did, we crossed over the Potomac River again and forked out another 1.50. Thankfully the shift had changed and we had a different gate tender.

 

       We were starting to get very tired and our hotel was still several hours away. I still wanted to see the farm where my family lived in W. VA. I knew I could find it once we got in the little town of Springfield. As we were traveling on the Green Spring Rd toward Springfield,

 I wondered if we would pass the little store where dad would stop and buy us popsicles. He would always holler out, "anybody that is sleeping don't get any ice cream", that usually brought everybody up. One time I was sound asleep and didn't hear the call, but he still got me ice cream.

~to be continued~