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Sorry for the delay of this post; I’ve been a bit swamped between work and home, and then I caught the plague that has been going around which knocked me out for a while, but I’m excited now to finish telling you about our WV road trip!
After Hillbilly Hotdogs, we continued on our way to Charleston. I’ve always wanted to see the Capitol building!
Mama, however, still had some classic Americana roadside attractions on her list to see, and they were our only real plan for this leg of the drive. We crisscrossed Huntington until we were able to check off the giant pink elephant as well as a pink and green giraffe from her list. We were going to skip the giant rotating root beer mug but stumbled upon it anyway while looking for the others. And boy, were we glad that we did!
Frostop is an old-fashioned drive-in. I don’t think I’ve ever actually experienced a true drive-in outside of a Sonic which I don’t feel quite counts. Now, we didn’t know that this place was a drive-in when we pulled in to snap a picture of the root beer mug. Daddy got out of the truck to go in and get a drink and the poor kid came out to take our order, and they met about halfway. The waiter was so baffled as to what to do! We all ordered one of their homemade root beers, and they were delicious!
We hit the road again and after catching a few county line signs were starting to get a little road weary and began looking forward to the hotel. We decided that we’d find a hotel, check-in early and get situated since we didn’t have a reservation, and then we’d wander around Nitro and Cross Lanes and find someplace to get dinner.
No haunted hotels for this girl that night – I wanted some solid shut eye! We checked into a Comfort Inn, dropped our bags, relaxed for a moment, and then headed back to the truck.
Now, my family has been a hard-core Cabela’s family for years. We even get a hardback copy of their catalog. I’ve been to at least two of the Cabela’s stores, and they really are a sight to see. There is usually a giant mountain display in the heart of the store; some even have a water fall! The food in their deli is also amazing. It’s usually a bit of a hike for us to get to a Cabela’s store, so when we saw a billboard for one we decided to go since we were tired and knew the food would be good.
After driving for entirely too long, we realized that we were in the wrong area. If you know my father, he never gets lost, so this is practically unheard of!
Once we finally made it there, we got our food (I usually get Elk on Marbled Rye which is my favorite and sooo yummy!) and then did a little shopping.
After Cabela’s, we went back to the hotel for the night, and I got a pretty good night’s rest.
We slept in a little, grabbed breakfast at the hotel, then checked out and headed straight for Charleston. The only thing on our list for the day was viewing the Capitol building, so it was a pretty straight shot there except for a brief detour to see Paul Bunyan and Babe his blue ox.
Since it was Sunday, we learned that the Capitol building wouldn’t open until noon. I was tired, and we decided rather than wait then spend an hour or so touring the building still with a long drive home, we would just wander the grounds a bit then head home.
The campus was beautiful. On a Sunday morning, it was basically deserted and peaceful. We walked around and looked at the Veteran’s Memorial, the Coal Miner’s Statue, and sat for a while on a park bench with a view of the shining golden dome and some friendly squirrels.
It was such an amazing weekend. I loved every moment of it, but I was still happy to get back to my own part of the Mountain State and my own comfy bed. I can’t wait for our next trip!
