Titanic Viewings and Pine Barren Pics

So I tried to put up an update last night but Titanic was on and who can concentrate when Leonardo DiCaprio is about to freeze to death? "Titanic?" you say, "While camping? What madness is this!” (you say). No, good followers, we did not get Titanic beamed directly into our brains while lying in a tent via futuristic technology, it was on a very non-futuristic television and we were lying on a moderately comfortable mattress.
Our plans took a bit of an S turn yesterday. After leaving the awesome bookstore/café (where I did not buy any books!) we headed out towards New River Gorge in West Virginia. This park was about 1/3 of the way to the caves, we would be able to get there before dark and set up camp. However, as we talked about it, and about our difficulties getting out of camp as early as we always plan to, we decided inertia was the better option. Since we were already rolling it would be much easier to keep rolling, so we rolled on past New River into the heart of West Virginia. Our new plan was to grab some food at a restaurant, make it to the western side of WV where there were a few other parks, set up just the tent, which we could break down easily and wouldn’t have to repack the car for, and hit the road early the next morning.  Everything was going smoothly until we decided to find something to eat in Charleston. We located a restaurant that had some gluten free options via a nifty app on Rob’s phone and, after considerable effort, we found ourselves outside an abandoned pizza joint. So we chose another restaurant which was also a bit of a trick to get to (turning around in the skinniest parking lot we’ve seen driving Moby? Not fun!) and finally sat down to eat. By the time we finished tempers were cooler, we were fully refueled, I was a bit tipsy, and 1 bottle of cider had shattered. We decided the evenings forward inertia was already shot so we may as well find a hotel and be comfortable for the night.  I should also mention that my anxiety had been acting up all day so a hotel was a really good option since I may or may not have been able to help Rob set up camp.

It turns out finding a hotel was just as difficult as a restaurant.  The first had no rooms, despite the fact Rob had called 10 minutes earlier and they told us they did. The second we wound up taking the wrong split at exit ramp and had to pull some u-turns to get headed back in the right direction (always fun while driving a whale).  Once we were finally in the room (after needing to get the keys re-programmed) we decided hotels were far more difficult than campsites. We did take full advantage of the hot water, comfortable-ish mattress, and television, which brings us back to the point of the story, how we were able to watch the end of Titanic. Whew!

So I'm going to take this chance while Rob loads up the car to share some more pictures! Yey!  Since I'm trying to go in order they're from way back (at least that's what it feels like) when we were in the Pine Barrens.  The Barrens are named, not, as Rob thought before he saw it spelled, because they were owned by feudal overlords, but because they are barren. The soil is extremely poor, almost entirely sand, so very few types of plants can survive. Bugs however were quite happy (much to Rob's dismay). On the plus side poison ivy was not one of those hardy plants. Awesome! 

So here you can see an empty portion of the campground, and how sandy the soil is.  Where there aren't tree roots to keep it in place it actually turned dune-like and driving through it left deep tracks.

Sand castles anyone?

Speaking of tracks I found a few really nice deer tracks; there is a semi-famous wilderness survival and tracking school that runs out of the area, with the way the soil hold tracks now I can see why!

Here's the site we chose to set up camp in, as far away from the other campers as possible.

Nice campsite, flat and open.

They really weren't the best camping neighbors, they were pretty loud, took all the fire wood from the unoccupied campsites, and really weren't very respectful of the area.  What really got Rob and me steamed was the kid who had a hatchet and was chopping at branches still attached to trees.

I am the Lorax and I speak for the damn trees!

Don't worry, I didn't insult anyone (even hatchet kid) verbally or otherwise, even though I was really, really tempted. It was a primitive camp ground (just pit toilets, no drinking water) and there wasn't a ranger station so no one to complain to but it looked like one stopped by in the evening and they did quiet down after that.

It's time to hit the road, I'll put up the rest of the photos as soon as I can!

Happy Trails!
- Miriam (The Lorax impostor)