Hey Y'all ! Hope you're having a great week! Me? Pretty good . I just got back from a trip to West Virginia with my wife and Forrest the Wonder Dog in the MAV.  If you haven't been to West Virginia you should put it on your places to go. There is lots to see especially in the New River Gorge area. That was our focus while on this trip. I have been to this area a couple of times in the past but in the fall when the leaves were changing I had never been in the Springtime. My wife had never been in this area before and of course Forrest the Wonder Dog was just wondering why we took him away from his home.  I decided to make a stop in Virginia on the Blue Ridge Parkway on the way there then we were scheduled to stay at a campground on the Parkway. We stopped at Mabry Mill on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia. We took some photo's and enjoyed our stop. Then we went to Rocky Knob campground only about 15 mile away and had a great stay at this beautiful campground. The next morning we headed out to West Virginia.

In West Virginia Babcock State Park was going to be our basecamp. We would stay here and travel to all of the destinations around the New River Gorge National Park. Babcock state park has lots of trails , a lake, cabins, camping and of course maybe one of the most photogenic Grist Mill in America . Especially in the Fall. I have been here a few times before but only in the Autumn. This would be my first Springtime shoot of the mill. The mill didn't disappoint and it was as beautiful as always. 

The New River Gorge National park is a rather large park being 53 mile in length. It is the Newest National park. It boast all kinds of activities from white water rafting, hiking, rock climbing. It has waterfalls , abandoned mill towns and of course the New River Gorge Bridge. The building of this bridge saved commuters 45 minuets of travel just to get across the New River Gorge. You now can travel that Gorge in about a minute .

Bridge Day. This day was concentrated pretty close to the New River Gorge Bridge. This is a big bridge sitting over 800 feet above the New River. One of the largest Arched Bridges in the world. They have a festival each year Bridge day and people bungie off of the bridge and base jump off of the bridge. First we went to the Grandview overlook. This over look is over a horse shoe bend in the New River. It is very spectacular view one that my photography club has done sunrise shots over the horse shoe turn in the river. We did not do a sunrise shot as we slept late and didn't get to the overlook until after 10 in the morning. We then went to Turkey Spur over look. We did not climb all the way to the top of the lookout but did get some shots at the base of it. We then headed to the Canyon Rim Visitors center near Fayetteville to see the bridge up close.  We arrived and I got my stamp in my National Park Passport. The Passport is a book that you can get a stamp at each of the 63 national parks. I've only got a few but hope to get many more. Just outside the visitors center is one of the best places to view the bridge. A short walk to an overlook gets you the first good view of the bridge. If you would like to have a different view you can go down the 150 steps to another view. But just remember you have to climb up those 150 steps.  We did both views and decided to have some lunch. What's nice about having the van is that i've got all the stuff for a good lunch right there and we made some sandwiches and were planning our next move. We had a hike planned but we saw that some weather was coming in and decided against it. Good thing we did it started to rain.

This is the wet part of our trip. We had rain and storms for almost 24 hours. The MAV worked great for this time in the rain. We were comfortable, dry had food and I had the Starlink set up and we had internet so we could watch movies, youtube , Facebook or whatever else we could do with the internet. If it got hot we could crank up the AC for a little bit to knock the temp down. So a big win for the MAV. We had to move our itinerary around and decided that we decided to go to Hawks Nest State park in the afternoon. So we went there and had a good time at the overlook and the gift shop there. By the time we were done there we really didn't have much time left so we headed back to the campsite. 

All in all we had a good time in West Virginia . Although we didn't get to do all of the things that we had planned it was still a successful trip and am looking forward to our next trip. So until the next trip. Get out and Shoot!  Here is a link to a short video I made of our trip. Wet and Wild West Virginia

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 posts there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link