{"id":4592,"date":"2024-03-19T20:10:53","date_gmt":"2024-03-20T00:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/?p=4592"},"modified":"2024-03-19T20:10:53","modified_gmt":"2024-03-20T00:10:53","slug":"a-plan-b-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/?p=4592","title":{"rendered":"A “Plan B” Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tuesday, March 19 2024<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Road video and map<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

About an hour south of Marlinton, where I stopped last night, is the luxury Greenbrier Resort<\/em> in White Sulphur Springs, WV. They organize activities for their guests that are available to non-guests and “Plan A” was to join their Mountaineer Experience<\/em> which involves 2\u00bd hours of learning Archery, Air Rifle targeting and tomahawk throwing. It is only offered at 9:30 am and 2:30 pm each day and the plan was to drive there for breakfast, do the 9:30 activity, and then drive on to Charleston, the State’s capital. Unfortunately, the cold spell that arrived yesterday would have meant standing outside for 2\u00bd hours when the temperature was 25\u00b0 F (-4\u00b0 C) and the wind was so strong that the National Weather Service had issued a fire danger alert for the area. I would have to pay close to $200 for this privilege and decided to leave it for another time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plan B was quickly formulated to drive directly to Charleston, using scenic byways instead of highway, with a quick stop along the way and then visit the State Capitol Building (which was also part of Plan A). If anything, the roads were even more scenic than yesterday and definitely more fun to drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The quick stop was at the Canyon Rim Visitor Center of the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve<\/em>. I visited the area in 2018 (blog post here<\/a>) but the visitor center has been fully refurbished with new exhibits and just re-opened earlier this month. This came about with the re-designation of the area as a National Park from a National River.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The New River Gorge as seen from the visitor center overlook<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After more enjoyable driving I arrived at Charleston and, eventually, found parking near the Capitol. Even in the bright sunshine of the afternoon I still needed to wrap up in a heavy coat and gloves to be comfortable in the stiff wind as I walked to the entrance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
West Virginia’s Capitol has had an active history.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The building is a traditional design but had the first “official” Instagram setup I have seen at a Capitol. Visitors are encouraged to sit on the swing, mount their phone in a slot in the map and post using the hashtag #AlmostHeaven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The interior of the building is very simple with plenty of open space, few statues or decorative elements and two identical chambers for the House and Senate (apart from the number of desks).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The interior of the dome.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
The rotunda has only four statues and is mainly a large open space for gatherings of up to 200 people.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
The Senate has 34 senators that serve for four years. The House chamber is identical in size and decoration but is much more crowded to accommodate its 100 members, elected to serve for two years. It is a part-time legislature that meets for about two months each year.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
The capitol overlooks the Kanawha River.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, March 19 2024 Road video and map About an hour south of Marlinton, where I stopped last night, is the luxury Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, WV. They organize activities for their guests that are available to non-guests and “Plan A” was to join their Mountaineer Experience which involves 2\u00bd hours of learning … Continue reading A “Plan B” Day<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,99],"tags":[62],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4592"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4592"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4604,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4592\/revisions\/4604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}