Our latest adventure starts at home when we decide that we've had enough of the tourist spots and that we're going to travel to West Virginia in search of some podunk-middle-of-nowhere farm town. So I get on Google Earth and start flying around, eventually finding Harper's Ferry, WV. Looks innocent enough right? Nice pretty small town right on the Virginia/West Virginia/Maryland border, little National Park around it, got some history, maybe some dirt roads to play on with our new Jeep Liberty ...

So, an hour later we pull into this place expecting roaming cows and people sleeping on their front porch. Turns out that Harper's Ferry is a West Virginia tourist mecca and on this particular day the masses have made their pilgrimage.

We had a great time though, despite the crowds and total crap parking. The city is built on a hill that suddenly descends into the junction of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, with the main (only?) street cutting right down the middle. I guess it was a little like Park City, UT but with an eastern flair. Nice little shops line the top of the street, and at the base they've left lots of the old historical buildings/settings for you to explore.

A little past the road is a great view of the river junction and a bridge that let's you walk right up to the edge of the railroad track tunnel (I guess you've technically crossed the Maryland border at that point). The highlight of the experience for the boy (and consequently for us as well) was when an Amtrak train went across the bridge while we were on it:




See here for a couple of extra pictures.