Taking the Scenic Route on Skyline Drive

We decided to start our family vacation by taking the scenic drive on the Skyline Drive through the hills of West Virginia and Virginia on our way to Washington, D.C. We started in the Cincinnati area, where my dad lives and headed for West Virginia.

Our first stop was a spontaneous visit to Marshall University. We saw the movie that shared the story of a former football team who had most of their team members killed in a plane crash. We headed to campus to go see the stadium. We noticed that the gates we unlocked, no one was on the field, and there just happened to be a football on the field.

We felt the need to make use of the field and the football. We took a few pictures and then played on the field.

We also ran sprints….. That didn’t last long.  It started to get dark so our football fantasy time had to come to a close and we had to get on the road again.

We took a bunker tour at the Greenbrier Hotel.  You can read about that here.

The views that we took in along the way were beautiful.

Each angle gave you another perspective to take in. We spent the day twisting and turning and pausing for pictures when we could as we drove.

We found out from some locals about a trail that had rocks to climb. We were told that it would be a lot of fun for our kids. They were right. We hiked the trail and got an amazing view along with an interesting challenge.

We like a challenge.

We carefully climbed the crevices and were rewarded with an even better view.

We took several pictures and then made our way back to the RV.

Our evening stop was another great view.

It started out innocent enough. Take in the view. Take a few pics.

The problem came from the phone handoff. While climbing the rock for a better family pic, the phone was supposed to be passed to me. My husband sat the phone on top of a rock. The problem was that he didn’t see the huge crack at the top. My phone fell immediately into the crevice. It fell far.

I was a bit panicked. My phone had all of my pictures, videos, and was used like a computer. It was the phone I used to capture all of my adventures and it was also my phone with all of my contacts. My husband tried to retrieve the phone and it kept on slipping farther down. It didn’t look good. It was one of those moments that took an awesome day and then felt like a kick in the face. I could not imagine leaving my phone on the side of a mountain. I had pictures to still take, adventures to video, people to call and the internet to be used.

My dad got creative and used some MacGyver skills to reach my phone while I did some praying. He found a rod with a curved hook at the end. He and my husband worked together for about ten minutes to save my phone. What kept my phone from being damaged and able to be rescued, was the Otterbox case I had on it. It not only saved the screen, it also made it so that the hook had something to grab on. My phone would have been long gone without the case. The hook was able to attach to a piece of the case to get it out. I was amazed that my phone did not have any damage.

The day was redeemed and our adventure that day had a happy ending.

*If you are clumsy like me I recommend getting an Otterbox for your iPhone.  I was not compensated for this by Otterbox. I’m just really glad I had one on my phone.

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