5 October 2012 West Virginia

I worked in the hotel for the morning before setting off for home. We don't cache often in West Virginia. It's a beautiful state, but locating roads to get to many caches can be tricky with the terrain. It gets much worse when I am traveling alone with my directionally challenged self. Most of our time in West Virginia has been limited to fun visits to Morgantown on our way to destinations farther south. This afternoon, I was headed to Pennsylvania and not Ohio so I was on a different path away from the turnpike and wanted to enjoy the state a bit.

I stopped for gas along Route 19 and spotted the sign below as I entered the station. Wow, a biplane ride would be amazing! After fueling, I went down the road hoping to see the plane or planes. It turns out the brick building in the image doubles as office and hanger. I could see one biplane in the hanger but not much else. I needed to continue home and wanted to hunt a nearby multi that hadn't been found in almost a year so I decided not to stop. A short time later, I was standing in an old confederate cemetery which had been used to bury the casulties of the Battle of Fayetteville when I heard a rare sound in the sky and spotted the bi-plane flying near. Hmmmmm, when do I need to return to Salisbury? This would be amazing.

I found this cache less than a month after the 150th commemoration of the First Battle of Fayetteville. This small cemetery is the final resting place for a number of CSA soldiers that perished in battle in September 1862. William Morgan was 19 when he was killed in battle. Today the cemetery is mowed, but stands unmarked otherwise.

My last stops were at the New River Bridge Trail and the New River Bridge. The last time I was here, I made the mistake of passing through town on the last day of the Bridge Day festivities. This is a small town to pack in an additional 100,000 visitors. Today was a lot quieter, and I was able to capture a few images.