Watoga State Park, WVa

I've been camping at Watoga for over 50 years. This park was built by the CCC in the 1930's. I can remember tent camping with my parents and occasionally we would see a trailer 14 to 16 feet in length. The roads and campsites handled this size very well. In the last few years it seems RV's are now nearly as big as a house. The roads were not designed for this length and thus everyone has trouble getting in and out of a park designed in the 30's. Actually this park is basically the same now as it was in 1959 when I first saw it. West Virginia added a new campground on the Western side of the park boundry beside the Greenbrier River. This park is very large rig friendly but the road off 219 into the park is narrow with a couple of real sharp turns. It is still accessible with a large rig. We pull our 31' 5th wheel in and out with no trouble. What a shame Seneca Rocks was shut down because it is really a nice big rig park. Another nice big rig park in West Virginia is Pipestem just off Interstate 77. I had truck campers for many years and upon retirement we purchased a 5th wheel. It requires considerably more planning to travel with a large rig.

Well, the story is this: We originally were going to enter this park from the west on our return trip to Florida from Maine. Our original plan was to stay at Seneca Rocks, but it got shut down in the Government shut-down, so our route was modified accordingly, and we came in from the east. We absolutely were astounded when we checked out the other entrance. Traveling is dangerous, and pulling a trailer through the mountains is more dangerous, but when "accidents" like this occur many times more than once, you just have to admit that God must be watching over us.

Surely there is a story there somewhere. ;)