It has been over 8 months since we last visited Donald’s parents in person in Florida, so we decided to take a trip down after Christmas, since the holidays worked out well to allow Donald to have the most time off while using a minimum of PTO.

We didn’t put any pressure on ourselves and took our time getting out the door, but we were on the road by 10 am. Our plan for today was to head to Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio, and then head towards New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia (although we weren’t sure if we would have enough time to see the park before it closed today). We fueled the car, and then fueled ourselves with lattes from Percent Coffee and McDonald’s.

Our first stop was the Boston Mill Visitor Center at Cuyahoga, our 15th National Park! It was very interesting in that this National Park seems to focus more on the industrial importance of the area between Cleveland and Akron vs. nature/geological attractions. This visitor center is built right next to the Cuyahoga river and a railroad, and we were quite surprised to see a ski resort right across the street with people skiing.

The interior of the visitor center was impressive, with large wall murals and information about the area. We stamped our Passport books and gathered some literature, but didn’t stay too long, since we had a lot to see and a long way to travel before the end of the day.

Outside of the visitor center main building, there is a viewing platform overlooking the Cuyahoga river. Our eyes were immediately drawn to the colorful mural under the overpass for the road. Just to the right, there is another cute, little bridge allowing for non-vehicle traffic to cross the river.

We then headed to Brandywine Falls. They have a nice boardwalk down to a viewing platform. Even though it was a mild day, there were some icicles clinging to the rock of the falls.

Next, we saw the Everett Road Covered Bridge. We parked in the small lot adjacent to the path leading to the bridge, and regretted it as soon as we stepped out of the car. There was some crop planted in the adjacent field that was pretty, but had quite a foul odor – no idea what it was!

We had a late lunch at Taco Bell. This was a must-stop for me, since Ohio is the only state where Taco Bell serves their Chili-Cheese burritos, which are my favorite! Thankfully, Donald indulged me and my heart was happy!

At this point, we knew that we were too far away from New River Gorge National Park to make it there before the park closed (and wanted to spend more time there), so we decided to stop for the night somewhere close to the park, and we would visit it in the morning before continuing south. We passed through the West Virginia capital of Charleston after sunset – we didn’t see a lot of the city, but did see the beautiful capitol building.

We stopped for the night in Beckley at 8 pm. We grabbed some dinner from the Chick-Fil-A drive-thru, checked into our hotel (Tru by Hilton), and ended our long, but fun-filled day.