Breaks Interstate, Southwest Museum, Natural Tunnel 3/1/14--3/2/14

We booked a cabin at Natural Tunnel for a long weekend at the beginning of March. We discovered immediately that this trip would be a little different. All of the cabins are at least two bedrooms, and the cabin we were going to stay in had two sets of bunk beds in the second bedroom. No sense in wasting that, so we suggested to Jordan that she should invite some friends. Within an hour, Caroline, April, and Krystal were coming with us.

We started out at 7:00 on Saturday morning for a seven hour drive. It's really only about five hours, but since we were going all the way to the Kentucky border we wanted to visit all four parks in the region in one trip. We went two hours out of the way to stop at Breaks Interstate Park.



Hmmm. Never drove through a mountain before.

Breaks is cool in that it is partly in Virginia and partly in Kentucky. I was POSITIVE that it was West Virginia, not Kentucky, but apparently I’m wrong. That seems to happen a lot. We looked at the moonshine still exhibit and let the girls burn off a little energy on the swings.

 

 

 

Those college kids on Spring Break sure play hard.

Then we headed to a scenic overlook on the way out. We hadn't planned on going down the trail to the second overlook but the girls really wanted to and who was I to say no to kids that want to hike? We were there to explore, right?

 

I'm so glad we did. What an amazing view! Straight down a gorge to bend in the river that wraps around a mountain. I can only imagine how glorious it would be in the spring. We got some great pictures and a couple of the more foolhardy of the crew went around the fence and climbed out on a rock over the gorge. I was flipping out but everyone made it safely back into the car.

 

 

Our next stop was the Southwest Virginia Museum State Park.

 

 

This is a gorgeous old home that's been turned into a three story exhibit of life in coal country in the 1800's. It's wonderful the way our state parks offer so many different activities and amenities. I bet there aren't many places that boast the historical parks we have!

 

 

We looked at all the exhibits, took some photos, and were back in the car. Natural Tunnel is only half an hour from the museum and we were more than ready to be there.

We arrived in the little town of Duffield and found the park with no difficulty, but our packet was nowhere to be seen. We drove to the visitor's center and while the girls played on the train car we searched for our packet. After finally calling a park ranger at his residence (sorry!) we found out that there is a camp store near the cabins and the packets are there. We looked at the chair lift before we drove off. We all agreed that we wanted to ride it and hoped it was running this time of year! With that, we were ready to find our cabin.

Wow! That was all we could say when we arrived at Cabin 7. What a beautiful place! "Cabin" is definitely not the word. From the outside we could immediately see that the building is immaculate, modern, and spacious.

 

We walked into an open floor plan living room/kitchen. The kitchen had room for a full size table with six chairs and more counter space than my kitchen at home. There was a full complement of brand spanking new stainless steel cookware and utensils, plenty of dishes, glasses, and even wine glasses this time! There was a set of Pyrex bake ware, plenty of French white soufflé dishes, and even a set of grilling tools. The flatware was good quality and new. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The living room's focal point was a gas fireplace. The furniture was plentiful and comfortable with the perfect rustic feel. The bathroom was big and modern and featured a heater!

 The girls' bedroom had two sets of bunks and a dresser and was still big enough for the four of them to spread out their gear.

Our bedroom was big, with a closet, dresser, and a bench at the foot of the bed. And the bed was queen sized!

 

 

When we ventured out the back door, we found ourselves on a wrap around deck overlooking the mountains. Below the deck was a picnic table and fire ring like at most park campgrounds. The girls immediately made plans to get the required s'mores ingredients the next day!

 They took off down the trail that begins directly behind our cabin while Dave and I settled in to rocking chairs on the deck with a glass of wine and a tired dog.

After the girls returned and we chatted for awhile about hiking plans for Sunday, we all went inside to make dinner. I brought a pizza crust for each person, so all I had to do was preheat the oven and put out sauce, cheese, and toppings. Each person created an individual masterpiece and put it in the oven. All of the girls except Jordan dug in to the spinach, tomatoes, and mushrooms. While we ate we played a rousing game of Cards Against  Humanity. Jordan whipped our tails. I think she cheats.

After that we all started to drift to bed. I sat down on the bed and thought "Yikes, that's hard" Then I realized I was sinking in. A memory foam mattress! Best night’s sleep I've had in awhile.

Sunday morning I woke up about six to take Ollie out. He was having a rough time, poor old man. It was so hard to watch the hero of Mt. Rogers struggle up three steps to the deck. He and I sat in the living room for awhile and waited for the others to wake up as I sipped a cup of good coffee.

Soon Dave and the kids started wandering out, including Jordan, who couldn’t stay asleep in the face of the unrelenting cheerfulness of her posse. By 8:00 a.m., everyone was awake, drinking coffee or tea, and sitting around the table in the kitchen while I piled their plates with pancakes, sausage, and eggs scrambled to order with spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes, and/or cheese.

After breakfast, we packed our backpacks with water, snacks, and extra layers and started out on the trail right next to the cabin.

 

 

 The Cabin Trail was a short spur trail that joined up with another leading to an overlook. We knew the whole distance we’d be going was maybe a mile, so we took Big Dog with us. He moved painfully slow and we told the girls to go on ahead while we paced him.

Eventually we all ended up at the overlook, which boasted a gorgeous view. We took a moment to snap some pictures, give Ollie a drink, and make a plan of attack for the rest of the day.

 

 

 

 

We headed back to the cabin and packed lunch to take with us on the Tunnel Trail. Leaving Ollie to rest at the cabin, we headed first to the camp store in search of s’mores materiel to use at the fire pit, then down to the Visitor’s Center where the Tunnel Trail trailhead is located. The contact ranger at the camp store had forewarned us that the chair lift wasn’t running, so we knew we’d have to walk down and then back up. Yowza. Despite the grade and the number of steps involved, I was secretly glad the chair lift wasn’t an option when I saw the way the cable dropped off to the bottom section. NO WAY they would have gotten me on that thing.

Down wasn’t bad at all, even though the steps hurt my knee, and the view was lovely. We could see a river at the bottom and even hear it as we descended. About halfway down we found a stone bench and took advantage of the photo op.

 

 

Seriously?

We reached the bottom and took the walkway to the left down to the river, then wandered up over the bridge and down the path a ways.

We came to an old log cabin with a sign that identified it as the Carter Cabin. The girls loved the branch railing on the porch and the fact that they could go in and explore. I enjoyed sitting on the bench listening to the rapids. I even took a short video with sound to use as stress relief once I’m back at work.

Next we headed back over the bridge and I was about to head around the chair lift station to check out the tunnel when I realized the girls had gone around the fence and were going through the tunnel on the rail tracks instead of around. I told them they couldn’t go that way and they had to come back down the path but being adults I couldn’t make them. Instead of letting them go alone, I had to follow them. For safety reasons, of course!

 

What an amazing view coming through the smaller tunnel and out into the open with the larger tunnel looming behind! We could have hung out and explored for an entire day.

 

We bravely ventured into the larger tunnel and checked out the cavelike areas on the right. The river dropped off under the rock at one point on the left and I decided maybe I really wasn’t all that keen on kayaking through there after all

 

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Lover's Leap

 

Returning to the platform, we took advantage of the bench there to eat the lunch we’d packed. The conversation kept turning to the weather and the winter storm warnings both at that park and at home. The forecast was for sleet and freezing rain beginning overnight, with an accumulation of up to a foot of snow at home. We were worried about driving home the next morning through the storm and getting suck somewhere. We briefly considered staying there for another night, and probably would have done just that if it wasn’t for the horses at home. Finally, Dave and I decided it was too dangerous to drive home in a storm Monday morning, and we didn’t really have the option of dumping care of five horses in a major snow storm on our pet sitter. We were sad not just to cut Natural Tunnel short, but to miss out on our side trip to Wilderness State Park. It's such a long drive down there that we certainly didn't want to have to come back to visit that fourth park, but we had to be responsible about not just the girls in our care but our animals at home. 

 

So, sadly, at the top of the many, many, MANY steps, I gasped out the bad news to the girls that we were heading back to the cabin to pack out 20 hours early. They were sad but understood completely.

 They were also amazing. While I packed up the kitchen, they stripped the beds and gathered the dirty towels, placing everything exactly as the park staff had requested in the check out list without me even telling them how it was supposed to be done—someone must have looked for the directions and told the rest of the team. I was so pleased with the girls the entire trip.

 

We got on the road with intentions of getting home and fixing dinner there, but shortly realized we weren’t going to make it to the house until a little after 7:30. That seemed awfully late to get home, unpack, bring the horses in, and then start cooking, so we found a Panera in Roanoke and stopped.

We finally rolled in around 9:00 and the girls got everything unpacked from the car and even put the food away for me before heading home themselves. Did I mention they were great?

We loved Natural Tunnel and were very sad to have to cut our visit short. We definitely are putting it on the “go back” list!

Park Rating:

Camping  Campgrounds look nice. Cabins are AMAZING!
Bathhouses  New
Water   Access to a river nearby
Hiking  Fabulous!!
Horseback  There are no equestrian amenities
Amenities  Camp store, visitor's center, chair lift to tunnel
Other  Near stores