Janice, Danielle, and Rachel greeted us at the door. On a recent Sunday afternoon, I went on a second Washington Photo Safari, and it was amazing — I learned so much. The jaunt was led by David Luria, a professional photographer, who focused on getting us away from using the “automagic” setting on our cameras […]
West Virginia
Ten Great Ghost Tours You Shouldn’t Miss!
September and October are the season most folks check out ghost walks and ghost tours — one of my favorite activities! Ghost tours are always intriguing — they’re a little bit of sight-seeing, a little bit of ghost story, and usually a lot of history. It’s a good way to get to know a city or […]
Afterlife Behind Bars at Moundsville Penitentiary
West Virginia Penitentiary was one of the bloodiest and deadliest prisons within the United States. It also is where the dark souls of rapists, murderers, and other criminals still may be walking, spending their afterlife imprisoned behind the same bars that held them captive when they were alive. Talk about recidivism! It was, of course, […]
Behind Bars: Touring the West Virginia Penitentiary
The West Virginia State Penitentiary is an imposing, gothic style prison located in Moundsville, WV. It operated from 1876 to 1995. Now open for tours, it stands as a monument to a bygone era, and provides ongoing testimony to man’s inhumanity to man. The town of Moundsville is interesting in its own right, having derived […]
Hiking a (Small) Portion of the Allegheny Highlands Rail Trail
For this week’s blog post, I’m recalling a memorable — but accidental — day trip we took during a vacation in West Virginia a couple years ago. With winter about to begin this year, it’s the time to think about warmer weather day trips — perhaps start planning a few more! It’s my guess we […]
Visiting our Ice Age Past at Cranesville Swamp
Cranesville Swamp Preserve is a 1,600-acre preserve situated in Preston County, WV and Garrett County, MD. The swamp formed 15,000 years ago during the last Ice Age, when glaciers inched close but never reached Maryland. The climate warmed and the glaciers retreated but many of the boreal plants remained. Nestled in a mountain valley bowl […]
Harpers Ferry, Town of Ghosts
Not quite living history, the ghost tour of Harpers Ferry brings the history of the town alive again. Billed as the oldest existing ghost tour in the United States, the Ghost Tours of Harpers Ferry began more than 40 years ago by local restauranteur Shirley Dougherty. After opening “the Old Iron Horse” restaurant in an […]
Greeting the Morning Sun at Bear Rocks
How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains! — environmentalist and author, John Muir We got up at the ungodly hour of 3:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning to take the long and somewhat nerve-wracking drive up Laneville Road from Canaan Valley, where we were staying just off of Route 32 in a rental cabin, to […]
Going Crazy at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum
Like countless others, I’ve watched the ghost hunting shows that have visited the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum (TALA), in Weston, WV. When I realized it was just 1 1/2 hours away from Canaan Valley, where we recently spent a holiday weekend, I added it to our weekend plans — a fortuitous decision because most of the activities for Canaan […]
Appreciating the Beauty of the Blackwater River
We arrived for our holiday weekend in Canaan Valley a few hours earlier. We unpacked the car and get settled into the cabin. The kids decided to hang out there, rather than come along with us as we re-explored Davis and traveled down memory lane a bit. The view from our cabin across Canaan Valley. […]
Where You Should Go to See Ruins in the Mid-Atlantic
Because all but one of these sites are in Maryland. I am challenging myself over the next year to find some good daytrips to ruins or ghost towns OUTSIDE of Maryland! By the way, I don’t do breaking and entering, so I’m not into sneaking into abandoned asylums or hospitals. If it’s fenced off and posted […]
My Top 4 Dog Friendly Day Trips
Periodically (i.e., whenever the whim strikes me, I’ll post my top picks. This is another in the series My Top Picks posts. Links to the original posts will be embedded in the text. Let me know what you think of this new blog feature! 4. Tail Lights at Columbia, MD’s Symphony of LightsA lot of […]
Bolivar Heights Battlefield
The Battle of Bolivar Heights, which took place on October 16, 1861, was an early battle of the Civil War. During the battle, Confederate States Army colonel Turner Ashby attempted to take the strategic Bolivar Heights from Union colonel John White Geary. After a 6-hour battle, the Confederates were ultimately repulsed, and the Union planted […]
Trail Rides in Canaan Valley, WV
One way to experience Canaan Valley, as well as some of the relatively nearby mountain attractions, such as Seneca Rocks, is on horseback. If you don’t have horses of your own — or you’re a novice rider — no worries. The local riding outfits can accommodate you easily. And although the rides are kid friendly […]
Pedal Through the Past: Biking through History
The prospect of biking through three national parks and two states in one day was intriguing, and doing so while gaining some insight into local Civil War history and heritage was almost too good to be true. That’s what I was thinking as I signed my husband and I up for Pedal Through the Past […]