North Bend State Park, WV
North Bend SP is a small park in northeast West Virginia. The Park has two campgrounds, we stayed at River Run, next to North Fork Hughes River, really a shallow creek at this time. The site is great, right by the creek though it took a bit to level it. There’s a Lodge with a restaurant and another campground, called Cokeley, which is new and focused on RVs but too tight with limited shade.
There’s access to a rail trail, just a mile through the park and we biked directly from our site. It’s about 72 miles, over 36 bridge and 10 tunnels as part of the American Discovery Trail. It’s gravel, looked like freshly put down, so still not packed. That gave me a bit of trouble, but still it was enjoyable. The other feature of the trail are the tunnels. They do not have any lights, just reflectors on the side walls, some are pretty long and curve as well.
On our first ride, we had to go through three of these tunnels (twice) and it got difficult for me. If you see the proverbial light at the end, not a problem. But if you don’t, it gets pretty dodgy, you can get disoriented very easy. Still, getting that DQ treat was worth it, I haven’t had strawberry shake in ages!
The towns/hamlets in the area are small, not much going on though we found a nice little place to eat, not far from the highway, called Dodd’s Log Cabin Grill. It does look like a log cabin, very simple menu with great food. I had a pulled pork sandwich special and Tom had meatloaf with mashed potatoes. Of course we had apple pie for dessert, with plenty of ice cream. Service was great as well. I love these little gems.
I’m enjoying the campground and our site specifically. The campground is tucked into little valley, so we have plenty of shade and cool breeze in the evening. It has been very warm lately, in upper 80’s so it’s hard for me to get energized. Good time to read a book or write the blog.
In the morning, it’s quiet, I’ll sit out with my coffee and see deer, ducks and even blue heron along the creek. There are lots of birds, I don’t really know the names and there’s no time to take pictures. They don’t like to pose for the camera.
We run into issues with electricity at our site, Tom worked with the maintenance and power company rep to troubleshoot. Plus all the solar, protect and other bits that Tom put in the trailer did not have us worries about completing our stay here, even without power. We had full sun each day and it was cool at night so we did not needed A/C. It was interesting though to see all the politics play out as the campground management had to consider shutting down their premier sites, ours and one next to us. Not a happy time for them.
We’re packing night and will ready to goin the morning, next stop is Maryland!
