Roadside Park Port of St. Albans

This is an unusual free campground. We surmised that it must have been built years ago before the city grew because it's in the middle of a commercial district. There's a Kroger right across the street but US 60 is four lane, busy, and missing crosswalks so walking there would be difficult. 

There are three campsites with electricity, tables, and trash cans. The little park also has a dump station with fresh water, a playground, picnic shelter, a boat ramp, and a nice view of the Kanawha River. 

 The parking pads are paved and level. The picnic tables have a slight overhang. Park 38.38848, -81.82494

  

Morgantown History Museum

 Morgantown was the childhood home of Don Knotts, famous as the bumbling Mayberry deputy, Barney Fife, so naturally it's the first exhibit when you enter the museum. Other exhibits feature early history and the many industries that built the city but have closed their doors such as glassware, coal mining, woodworking, and shirt making. 

 

One of the companies that no longer exists is the  S&P Manufacturing Company home of  the Stepulator, invented in the early 1960s by local resident, Bob Phillips. The Stepulator had treads like a tank and could climb stairs. Airlines were the main customers because at that time passengers boarded by climbing a short flight of movable stairs. The arrival of passenger loading bridges in 1965 meant the end of the Stepulator company. Looks scary! 

The museum is on the ground floor of the Monongalia Arts Center building. The accessible entrance is in the rear.

RVs will not fit in the small parking lot located at the rear of the building. There is parking on High Street however Morgantown is very hilly and visitors in wheelchairs will need assistance to get to the accessible entrance.  Museum  39.62828, -79.9579

 

Kruger Street Toy and Train Museum

 What do you do when your collecting hobby gets out of control? Start a museum, of course!  Allan Robert Miller and his son, Allan Raymond began collecting toy trains in the 1970s and soon expanded into collecting all kinds of toys. 

This amazing collection of toys and games is housed in a 1907 former school. Each room has a different theme - board games, HO-gauge and O-Gauge trains, a giant puzzle and Disney toys, a K-nex amusement park, local history, and cars, trucks, and trains from the 1800’s to the present. Most of the rooms have toys and games that visitors are permitted to play with. The first floor center hall features a large Lego display. The second floor has a case filled with dozens of bobbleheads. 

The old metal toys are beautifully crafted. 

The entire basement is filled with Snoopy memorabilia, a collection donated by Dr. William Mercer, a local Wheeling doctor. 

The accessible entrance is on north side of the building. Call to have someone open the door. Once inside the floor slopes down steeply before leveling out. A small elevator, operated by the staff, provides access to all the floors. All the rooms are accessible. 

RVs will fit in the lot if parked across the spaces. Museum 40.04076, -80.65856

 

 

Wheeling Heritage Trail

 The Wheeling Heritage Trail follows the Ohio River for 16.5 miles along an old railbed and connects Wheeling, West Virginia to Wellsburg, West Virginia.  We parked north of Wheeling and walked/rolled north towards Wellsburg. After about 1.5 miles of traveling through a green corridor beside the river the trail climbed to parallel Route 2. We turned around as this point and went south, passing our parking spot and going through downtown Wheeling before turning around again to make a total distance of about 6 miles.

The section of the trail that we were on is very urban. If we do this trail again we'll start at Wellsburg and go south. Google satellite view shows that part of the trail farther away from the highway with less developement. 

The trail is in good condition and the only hill we encountered was the section climbing to Route 2.9

Most of the parking areas along the trail are not suitable for large vehicles. We parked at west end of 5th Street where it meets the trail. The parking area is gravel with plenty of room to park and turn around an RV. 5th Street is steep but navigable by any vehicle. Trail     40.07814, -80.72694

Seneca Rocks and Seneca Shadows Campground

The jagged  ridge of Seneca Rocks, jutting out of the thick foliage covering the rest of the mountain, dominates the view in the flat Potomac River valley. The sheerness, hardness, and height of the rock face draws rock climbers from all over the country. It's the only place in the eastern US that offers this kind of climbing challenge. For able bodied hikers there is another much easier way to the top of the rocks - a 1.3 mile trail that switchbacks up 700' to an observation platform. 

    Red arrows point to three climbers on the rock face. Yikes!

Seneca Rocks is managed by the National Forest Service. It features trails, a visitor center, a pioneer homestead, and a picnic area. Seneca Shadows Campground is located a few miles south. Amenities include tables, fire rings, restrooms, potable water, and a dump station. The terrain is hilly so few of the sites are level. The self-service pay station and the dump station (extra $7 fee) are kind of hard to find -almost at the end of the campground road. Look for signs for the turn. The Recreation.gov reservation site indicates that most of the campsites are first come/first serve but we found many of them had reserved tags on the posts. There were still enough open sites for people who didn't reserve a site. 

The visitor center, which is accessible, has a few exhibits and a nice view of the rocks. A paved, accessible trail switchbacks down to a bridge over Seneca Creek and to the parking lot for the Seneca Rocks trailhead. The pioneer homestead is located at the north end of the lot. The homestead is not accessible due to the rough terrain and lack of a ramp at the house. 

 

The campsites parking pads are paved but very narrow. Some of the sites are marked as accessible on the reservation site but none of them are and the posts at the sites do not have an accessible designation. The double sites are accessible only because they're made wide enough to fit two units which is reflected in the much higher price. We looked for the most level site which was one with steps up to the table. It was also too narrow to deploy my lift. Campground 38.82798, -79.38656

 

New Deal Homestead Museum

Arthurdale, West Virginia was the initial project of the Subsistence Homesteads Division, part of the President Roosevelt's New Deal agencies. Construction started on the 165 house community in 1933 at the height of the Great Depression with a goal of providing modern, safe living conditions for unemployed farmers, miners, and their families. The community was designed to be self governing and self sufficient with an administration building, community hall, forge, school, post office, stores, and businesses. Each house had a large plot of land so that the families could grow their own food using shared farm equipment. 

This was a pet project of Eleanor Roosevelt, who was very involved in the planning and visited the community 33 times. She also convinced businesses to open factories in the town. Unfortunately, none of them lasted long.Twenty nine communities, located all across the country, were constructed by the division before it was abolished in 1937 because it wasn't popular with either political party and the communities didn't live up to expectations. Even so Eleanor Roosevelt and families living in Arthurdale considered it a success because of the improvements in people's lives. 

Guided tours are the only way to see the museum buildings which consist of the admiration building, the forge, a few outbuildings, one of the houses furnished circa 1930s, and the community hall. The tour is very interesting. A map is available if you want to take a driving tour of the community. Most of the houses are still standing and occupied although many have been remodeled. I highly recommend using the map because we tried just driving around and kept hitting dead ends. 

                  

The administration building, where most of the exhibits are located, and the community hall, which is empty except on special event days, are accessible. The entrance to the house has a high threshold and the second floor is accessed by stairs only. Assistance may be needed to see the outbuildings due to rough terrain.

The parking lot is large enough for RVs. Museum  39.49481, -79.81564