A great place to come and learn about Railroad history. Definitely get for kids. And a most stop…read moreplace if you visit Clifton Forge.

This place in a word is charming! It's a gem for any train enthusiast. The museum was informative…read more Going through the display train cars was like stepping back in time. The best part about it was the mini train that people could ride around the track. The gentleman who was working that day looked like he loved his job and he was happy to share any information he had. Fun place to go in the middle of nowhere.

This is the most versatile small town souvenir shop I've seen. A little Hammacher Schlemmer of the…read moreresort town memento and memorabilia variety. Entering the store, on the outside veranda, there are countless wind chimes, from Hawaiian to Appalachian. As well as decorative flags with puppies, flowers, snow motifs, etc. Inside, there is a chocolate factory, stands with Yankee Candles, cards, Snowshoe and Appalachian souvenirs, key chains, jams and fruit butters, you name it. And upstairs, there is a country furniture store with rustic furniture and decorative canoes, signs etc. It is a wonderful place to visit.

Sadly the visitors center, and thus the tour to the base of the giant radio telescope was closed at…read morethe time of my visit. But I did the tour 2 years ago and highly recommend it. Be sure to take a disposable style camera with you, as normal cameras and cell phones are not allowed at the base of the telescope. You can take all the photos you want from a distance though. And for the Fallout 76 fans, this is a special treat of a real life visit.

This is a must do stop if you're within even a partial day's drive of Green Bank. But don't expect…read moreto do a Yelp checkin here, since there's no cell service within many miles of the "quiet zone". Green Bank Observatory, as it's now known since it's no longer part of the National Radio Observatory network, is home to the Robert C Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) - the worlds largest completely steerable radio telescope, as well as as many other functional and decommissioned radio telescopes. Tickets are cheap - a few dollar per person over 10 years old. The tour to the GBT lasts less than an hour and is very impressive. There are no up close photo opportunities unless you have a film or disposable camera. An observation deck does give an opportunity for photos of the GBT in the distance. The hands on portion of the indoor exploration area offers a lot of educational fun and packs a lot of information into a small area. The food at the little cafe is delicious, so be sure to stay after the tour for a sandwich or salad. Overall, this place is an amazing hidden gem that's a must see!

If you are fortunate to be in West Virginia and in Pocahontas county the last Saturday of…read moreSeptember, the town of Marlinton should be your destination. This festival has been going on for awhile but when Andrew Zimmern from the show "Bizarre Foods" featured the festival on his show, it got a boost in attendance. My better half and I decided to drive 4 1/2 hours and explore what the 2019 WV Roadkill Cookoff and Fall Festival was all about. Husband is a hunter/ fisherman and adventurous eater. He has no hesitation when it comes to something "different." While there was no possum, groundhog or squirrel on the menus, there was bear, deer, boar offered. We arrived early Saturday morning and learned there are a number of events. A biscuit bake off was going on at the Opera House and a race called the possum run, music at the gazebo and the cookoff. The main street through town was blocked off and lined with a number of booths with crafts and food for sale. Husband was itching to see where the cookoff was and we were guided to the edge of town where the competitors were distributing their special dishes. We purchased wrist bands for $5 each and that would entitle us to taste test. We were also given tickets to vote for our favorite dish. We were surprised to see that there were only 8-9 competitors. We had expected more participants, but after seeing all the work put in to their food, presentation and booth decoration, i admire those who entered and competed. Small portions were handed out, but we had a lot of fun going from booth to booth. My favorite was the bear goulash and corn muffin. Husband liked the wild boar and venison. It's a small town festival with lots of locals who were very friendly. The music was my favorite thing of all. I would go back again next year just to sit by the gazebo and listen to old time and bluegrass music. PS - at the end of the day, we made our way back to our car only to discover we had a flat tire. As my guy started to fix it, several locals came over to help and see if we needed anything. They offered a portable air compressor to put air in the tire to see where the leak was. Then they stayed with us until we got back on the road to our motel. This wouldn't happen in my hometown. I came away from the weekend loving this part of West Virginia. The mountains and the people are amazing.

Knowing my penchant for eating weird stuff, the hubby suggested we go to the roadkill festival…read more Always down for an adventure, and wanting to check squirrel off my "to try" list, I was in. Here's how it works (theoretically, at least). For a very small admission fee ($3) you get to sample all of the roadkill offerings, and vote for your favorite by casting your "golden ticket" ticket into your chosen chef's ballot box. Sounds simple, eh? As with many things in life, it got unnecessarily complicated. Although the festival is by no means new (it's been going on for 25 years), my guess is that the festival was suffering from some growing pains after getting some national exposure on the Travel Channel. With the exception of the guy who made boar chili, we waited for 30-45 minutes to sample EACH item. Sometimes, we had to wait for the food to be cooked; othertimes, the distribution was simply inefficient and painfully slow in relation to the large crowd. I never got to try one participant's food AT ALL, because the participant simply ran out of food. What the hell? Inevitably, I gave my ticket to the boar dude, mostly because he was the only one who didn't aggravate me. In addition to the roadkill samplings, they had a section with various vendors selling crafts and food, including local wineries, boy scouts, FFA, etc. By the time we were done spending several hours waiting in lines, much of the non-sample sized food (smoked pork, lamb, etc.) was completely sold out. Again, I believe that more people showed up than they anticipated. Would I go back? Maybe in a couple of years, after they get come of their bugs worked out.

Went browsing in this store with a long history. There was a good deal on candy by the piece, 12…read morefor $1. Had some of the old favorites like Bit of Honey and Black Cow. Had a quick bite in the restaurant, excellent onion rings. After eating you can watch the scenic railroad train come in or fish the Greenbrier!

We stopped by on the way back home, to our hotel, from skiing at snowshoe. We were drenched to the…read morebone from a rainy day on the slopes and were happy to find a place that had takeout. We had no phone service and no idea where to stop - I was frustrated because I was hoping to use Yelp to guide me. We saw this cute place and were kindly greeted by every sweet employee. This place had a great lunch special that they gave to us at dinner time - it was $15 for a pizza with three toppings and a 2 liter coke. While we waited we sipped hot coffee and my friend ate homemade biscotti. The coffee was great, the biscotti homemade and good, and the pizza was pretty tasty. It wasn't like New York pizza but it was fresh and hot and it really hit the spot. The country store place made me feel like I went back in time. I loved the old floors and trinkets they had there to purchase (homemade cookies, jams, biscotti, local maple syrup etc.). It really is a touristy shop but we enjoyed the experience. It was a great place to stop and grab something before going back to our hotel. They did have free WiFi btw, which was great.

Greenbank. The main reason we can't get cell phone service at the cabin or anywhere in the area…read morethanks to the NROA dead zone. It's important research, Sagittarius A* the massive black hole at the center of our galaxy that holds everything in place was discovered here. Personally I like the conspiracy theory that the big dish is used to communicate with aliens downloading decades old messages and replying with the same time frame. I mean, have you ever seen how small the power is used by the Voyager probes to communicate with NASA? Alien signals are going to be way smaller. If you didn't know you can walk past the gate arm and walk back to the big dish. Do not walk past the chain link fence unless you want to be greeted by a team of armed commandos who will roll up on you with a diesel powered UTV. There is an amazing science center with tons of interactive exhibits inside and it's free. They also have a wired internet connection for your phone. Seriously. You plug in this ethernet adapter to your lightning or USB-C port and magically your phone works again...you can even make a call! I have heard you can jump on newly permitted wifi down at the elementary school as well. Surprisingly they have two J1772 electric vehicle chargers at the building across from the visitors center. You need to by an EV charging pass for $3 at the gift shop. It's good for the entire day so if you drive down to Cass or up to Durbin and want to stop and charge again you are welcome to. We did the bus tour which was $10 per person. They take all of your electronics...phones, watches, AirPods..anything that generates a signal. This is because the bus takes you to all of the telescopes. You can't even use your digital camera there...only film. So I have no close up photos of the radio dishes, just from far away at the observation deck which is great for a family pic. If you walk past the gate they ask you to leave all electronics in your car. Science is happening people and it is important! You don't want us to miss the last text from Alf or ET do you??? There is also a food court but the food is just okay. I'd recommend the new Rustic Roots Bar and Grill in Durbin a few miles away...it was fantastic.

They have a great free interactive museum that really explains what goes on here. You can pay $10…read morefor the bus tour which we would've liked to have done but are only offered certain times and we would've had to wait. Very informative!

People beware. We…read morehave not been there in a few years and we rented snowboards and skis. started out slow with no one really acknowledging we were there and they were very slow get to us and fit the boards.. Then when checking out they ran one of my cards where it was around a thousand dollars. We came back and returned our snowboards and skis then the manager told us our payment did not go thru. So we gave another card cause it did not show on the card since the reception was very bad im guessing. So we paid and left and a day Later we noticed they charged my one card along with my other card twice. So they owed me almost two thousand dollars. Called four times in two days and the response was none and the last response was they are too busy to talk. So at this point they are stealing from me and not responding. So buyers beware as we will never be back to them nor will any of our other family and friends. Horrible experience.

Without a doubt the worst customer experience of my life. Absolutely ridiculous. Go ANYWHERE but…read morehere! Summary: they stole from us, lied to us, insulted us, and gave us faulty and damaged equipment. __________ A group of six of us drove in Saturday night with the intention of renting equipment for three days. We each bought the same package and walked out after spending around $900. A good experience so far (if you're not fazed by snide comments). We also each bought insurance. The next morning at snowshoe one of our bindings instantly snapped. We drove back down the mountain and brought the board to the shop for help. The employee, a Mr. Hunter West, refused to see or help us until my friend re-filled out all initial forms and printed a new receipt. To our surprise the machine was out of receipt-paper. We explained the problem several times to the seemingly disinterested employees. Eventually Hunter rounded the corner with a deep groan to replace the paper. He somehow gave the impression that we were actually expected to service their archaic teller machine ourselves. When he finally did look at the board we were met by guffaws and an explanation that we had the wrong boots for our board. We rented the boots and board together from them! To our decreasing surprise no employees working at the time were trained or aware as to how to replace snowboard bindings. After a lengthy wait my friend received a replacement board and was forced to endure a long and nebulous re-check-out process. At the conclusion of our trip we each entered the ski barn and returned our equipment. The employee at the counter, Hunter West of course, started off the encounter by accusing my friend of failing to return his board, bindings, or boots. He became increasingly defensive and insinuated my friend had stolen or lost every piece of his equipment. Next he developed a fixation on the fact that the equipment was not visible on his monitor despite it sitting on the counter mere feet from his line of sight. After a few more minutes of blustering another employee finally explained that she had checked in the equipment and that it was all accounted for. Hunter then accused the same friend of buying only a two-day pass instead of a three day pass like the rest of us. We explained that this was very unlikely and instead almost definitely a consequence of said friend having board replaced by Hunter the previous day. He became almost apoplectic at the idea and denied that he could ever have made such an error (he went on to claim he had never even seen us before!). When we asked to see a record or receipt of this aberrant transaction, we were denied. According to Hunter the Ski Barn only keeps record until end of day. Let that sink in. In other words, if you do not have your receipt on you when you walk in, the Ski Barn can and will scam you as they keep NO RECORDS. Because my friend did not have his receipt on him he was forced to pay the exorbitant fee (on what appeared to be Hunter's personal register?) before being allowed to leave. Of course upon arriving home we found the receipt immediately (image included below) proving that my friend had indeed purchased a 3-day rental. In short my friend purchased a 3-day ski rental and received faulty equipment. He then lost more than half a day's skiing due to the ineptitude of the 'technicians' at Ski Barn. He was accused of theft and charged a ridiculous fee. Ultimately he paid for 4-days of ski rental for two days of equipment use. Throughout the process we were sassed, insulted, and lied to in ways I didn't think were possible. I'd have to say I do not recommend. At all.

I love the no pressure atmosphere. Staff always friendly and helpful. From NC so we stop in when…read morein town.

Chuck and his wife helped me out, even though my trip was very last minute and I had a few snags…read more I had been trying to fit in a 3 day trip with my kids and dog on the Greenbrier trail, and only managed it about 2 days ahead of time. I reached out to Chuck and he gave me the information I needed to go ahead with it, even though I still wasn't locked in for my arrival. Once I was able to give him my start and end location to shuttle my car and trailer, he and his in-store staff helped me to feel very comfortable before I headed into the quiet zone around the Greenbank Radio Observatory (no cell service!). When I arrived in Cass to start the trail, I found that one of my kid's bike had lost an axle. Luckily I was able to find a replacement part texting via Wifi in the Company Store, and drove to Marlinton to pick it up. There I was able to tell Chuck about my emergency plans and he met me to discuss the new end point and good places to stop. His wife picked up my car and left it in Renick exactly as planned. Despite our setbacks, the trip was great. Without Chuck's assistance and advice, this trip would not have been such a success.