Nature | Linda Lou's Life

Our first destination was New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia. I love West Virginia; it’s a beautiful state, totally worthy of its own song. We learn from each trip we take. One of the reasons we start our trips in early-to-mid September is because school is back in session which (usually) means crowds are smaller at high traffic locations such as national parks. (Mount Rushmore and Glacier National Park in July were not for the faint of heart.)

The first step for us is to check out the Visitor’s Center. At the very minimum, we need a stamp and sticker for our National Parks Passport and I’m always on the lookout for interesting stocking stuffers and/or souvenirs. Then we grab a map of the park and determine what we want to see. We decided to check out the scenic outlooks near the visitor’s center followed by a scenic drive.

No selfies in front of New River Gorge National Park’s non-traditional sign.

After completing our selfie attempts at the overlook nearest the bridge, we noticed people walking on the girders under the bridge. My first thought was, “What are those idiots doing?” We then realized they appeared to be wearing safety harnesses which were attached to an overhead cable. So, these weren’t just random people being careless. It turns out there is a company named Bridge Walk just before the entrance to the park. Per their website, “Bridge Walk offers guided tours of the New River Gorge Bridge from the catwalk 25’ beneath the Bridge.” If you are brave enough to do it, I’ll wish you well and wave goodbye as you begin your journey; this girl is not a fan of heights and my feet are staying firmly on the ground.

It was a beautiful day to spend at a beautiful park.

When we finished up at New River Gorge, we made the twenty mile drive to Babcock State Park. The scenery at the park was gorgeous; I’m sure when the fall colors arrive it edges into spectacular. (Water levels were really low during our visit.)

The grist mill is still functional, but wasn’t running the day we were there.

Next stop: Ohio!

Have you been to either of the places featured here?

Kenn and I travel primarily to see parts of the country we haven’t seen before. While we’re seeing the sights, we also make it a point to visit any national parks, national monuments, etc. along our route. A few years ago I discovered the existence of National Parks Passports and gifted Kenn one. The “passport” is just a fun way to document the parks that you’ve visited. The book is broken out by area of the country and within each section each page gives spaces for the official cancellation and a regional stamp (decal) for the location.

Each park has “cancellation” stamps for the location. The stamp includes the date, name of the park, and the location (state, town). The stamps are usually located at the visitor’s center, but not always. At the Flight 93 memorial in Pennsylvania, the stamps were located at the memorial plaza instead of the visitor’s center. While the stamps are free, the decals (or regional stamps) are not. There are usually a variety of these decals to choose from and they are less than five dollars.

There are also a couple of handy accessories for the passport books. The first is stampable sticker sets. Each of the stampable stickers is round and just the right size for a cancellation stamp. These stickers come in handy if you forget your passport; you can just stamp the sticker, then place the sticker in your book later. As I’ve learned, they also come in handy when the cancellation stamp is incomplete or illegible as sometimes happens when there is too little (or too much) ink on the stamp. In those instances, I just stamp one of the stickers and place it over the original stamp. Problem solved.

The second helpful accessory is the expander pack which provides extra pages that can be added to the passport book. When we took our trip out west in 2023 we quickly filled up the section for that area, so it was nice to be able to add a couple of pages. Of course, the passport book is rather small so there are only so many pages that can be added. I’m not sure what we’ll do when we can no longer add pages. Maybe we’ll just pick up a second passport.

As one of the perks to turning 62 last year, Kenn gifted me with a Lifetime America the Beautiful pass. Now, rather than needing an annual pass to the national parks, we’re good for life! There are some national monuments, etc. that don’t accept any of the parks passes (I’m looking at you Mt. Rushmore), but they are few and far between. If you plan to visit several parks, monuments, etc. in the course of a year, an annual pass is your best bet. At only a few dollars more for a lifetime pass, it is definitely a steal once you hit the right age.

Now, we have an excuse to go back to the parks we visited before getting a passport to collect the stamps from those. I don’t consider that a hardship, LOL. Any other national park “collectors” out there?🙋‍♀️