Wild & Wonderful Trip Highlights
June 18-20, 2024
Whether a participant was a resident of West Virginia or someone just interested in the wild and wonderful state, we all had many discoveries during our three day trip, Tuesday June 18 through Thursday June 20, via luxury coach bus with leather seats and various amenities. Our bus picked us up and returned us to The Woods. The trip was open to anyone 21 or older regardless of membership in the Woods Garden Club. We needed a minimum of 25 participants for the trip to run but within just a couple of weeks we had our maximum for 40.
Highlights:
​
Greenbrier Resort: a National Historic Landmark and an award-winning resort that has been welcoming guests since 1778.
​
​
Lunch in Lewisburg: named the “Coolest Small Town in America” and noted for its cuisine.
​
​
Exhibition Coal Mine: take a ride through the passages of a vintage coal mine with veteran miners as guides or do a self-tour of the period coal camp buildings situated throughout the grounds.
​
​
New River Gorge Visitor Center: discover the striking size of the gorge with one of the world's oldest rivers at the bottom and get unobstructed views of the longest steel arch span in the western hemisphere and the mile wide gorge it spans.
​
2 Nights Stay in Charleston, location of FestivALL while we are there: a city-wide, multi-arts festival showcasing a mix of music, theater, dance, visual art and more. We will stay at the Embassy Suites, with our group rates. (Do not book on your own without our group link.)
​
Tamarack: the nation’s first showcase of handcrafts, fine art and regional cuisine. It comprises a warmly decorated retail store, working studios for resident artisans, a fine art gallery, a theater, food court, and conference center.
​
J. Q. Dickinson Salt Works: a 7th generation salt-making family harvests an all-natural salt by hand, from an ancient ocean trapped below the Appalachian Mountains of the Kanawha Valley.
​
Lunch at the Capitol Market: an indoor shopping environment with many specialty shops and an outdoor farmer’s market plus a nice Italian restaurant.
​
​
WV Capitol: noted for having the highest state capitol dome in the United States and its decadent interior details like marble walls and massive crystal chandelier.
Appalachian Glass: a special glass blowing demonstration for us with one of their glass artists.
​
​
WVU Evansdale Greenhouse: during and after a gourmet box lunch, we will tour the greenhouse facilities, see their latest technologies, and hear about faculty plant research.
​
​
WV Botanic Garden: enjoy several gardens out of the eight on site there, including the butterfly, secret, and shade gardens.
​
​
Dinner at Tropics near Cheat Lake: in a delightful covered outdoor setting, we will enjoy a dinner buffet together before heading home.
​
For a pdf of more details, including costs, click here.
(Note: Due to the closure of two of our planned sites in Charleston, we had to change our itinerary several days before our trip,
after this document was created. The locations listed above are correct.)
​
​