"Take Me Home Country Raods"

Papa and I have always loved going to the Oregon State Fair each year and it always falls near our anniversary so we have often gone there to celebrate our anniversary.  Papa had read about the West Virginia State Fair and how it is a traditonal old State fair so we decided to give it a whirl.  Since the next few weeks are full of things we have to do we decided to do our anniversary early this year (on the 28th we will be married...gasp..ready...38 years!) The fair is in Lewisberg and it is only about an hour away but  we decided to go to Lewisberg  and spend the night.  On the way there I took some pictures of the beautiful drive:
  this is House Mountain just outside of Lexington:

There are mountains and peaks and these are peaks

We had made reservations at the General Lewis Inn. The house was built in 1830 and then a family bought it and added on to it and opened it as an INN in 1929. The same family still owns it.  You can check out the details at?http://generallewisinn.com/lewisburg-history.html  A battle during the civil war actually took place around the Inn.

Front of the INN

Our window is partially hidden by the tree on the right

Papa coming out of the entrance

This coach was used to take guests to the nearby hot springs

Out in the back there was a nice yard with a garden:

Of course there was a Cardinal to welcome us!

There was a lovely parlor with lots of antigues and beyond you can see the restaurant where we ate dinner and breakfast

We had an old Acorn bed, can you guess why it is called an Acorn bed?

I wanted you to see how high the bed was, Papa had to help me get in it!

The next morning we went and explored downtown and then headed to the fair.  There were several things about the fair different than the Oregon State Fair.  It wasn't nearly as big, no sky ride and barely any commercial vendors (one of our favorite parts!) but it saved us money!  All of the animals except the few Llamas were there to be sold and there were no unusual varieties of goats, sheep etc.  Just the ones that were good for meat. (Did you know that goat is good for your health?).

Papa was happy they at least had some Llamas

Papa became a Mountaineer

And I tamed a bear

We cozied up to a huge chicken!Note the can in Papa's hand, that is how they served us home made rootbeer!

And in the poultry house they had a water slide for ducks.  They put feed in a little can and when they reached to get the food if the duck wasn't careful he would slide down the slide.  They seemed to be ok with it and kept going back for more!

We thought we'd see what Papa looked like as Daniel Boone!

It was a great weekend and we enjoyed ourselves!
We plan on making many more trips to West Virginia.  Our next one on the radar is a dinner train ride through the mountains when the leaves change!  One thing is for sure, everywhere we go we will hear John Denver singing "West Virginia" (as they call it in the state!)