This was the hardest blog post for me to write – which is why I’ve been putting it off for months. And before I can even dive into the story about our trip, I need to go into a little bit of a backstory, so please bear with me.
Back in 2012, Jarrett and I decided it was time to welcome a furry child into our lives. We both loved dogs but had only moved into together in 2011 and had to get settled in before we added a puppy to the mix. After some searching, applying and being rejected, we finally came across Spartacus, an adorable red-colored mix, with a goofy face and giant tongue. He was being fostered in the south and if we wanted to adopt him, he would be transported to New Hampshire on a large 18-wheeler. Our application was accepted and Spartacus was on his way to us!
He arrived on a Saturday in June with a bunch of other dogs that had traveled up the eastern seaboard. When he arrived to us, we renamed him Carter and he became the center of our world. He was the naughtiest puppy – I’m not exaggerating – he dug a hole through the drywall in our apartment, he dug a hole through the mattress in our guest room, he broke out of his crate repeatedly, ate books, the remote, the windowsill, the doors, amongst other things. But he was goofy and snuggly and loved us!
Over the years we fell into a routine and discovered Carter’s quirks. He wasn’t the most trusting boy and preferred to be ignored by people, unless you gained his trust, then he wanted your undivided attention. He liked other dogs but only on his terms. We couldn’t take him with us to a lot of places but we always felt comfortable taking him for walks or hikes because when he was on the move, he was focused – all he wanted to do was explore with his people. Unfortunately for Carter, when we got him, we were still in our mid-twenties and were more interested in going out with our friends and drinking than we were going out hiking. As we got older, our interests shifted, but Carter was also getting older. While Jarrett and I were having a blast going on vacations and exploring new places, we were feeling more guilty leaving Carter while we were away.
This guilt became worse after the Covid-19 pandemic and working from home for months on end – he was more attached to us than ever before. In 2022, he a tumor removed and then had complications from the surgery. It was a scary month for us but he bounced back to his normal self. He was an energetic, hyperactive and wild 11 year old puppy. We wanted to do another long vacation in spring of 2023 but after Carter’s health scare in the fall, we didn’t want to leave him, so we decided we’d take him with us. After some research about the most dog friendly national parks, we decided we would rent a campervan and do a roadtrip to Shenandoah National Park, Congaree National Park and New River Gorge National Park in May 2023. We’d make a few other stops a long the way. Reservations were made, the itinerary was set and now we were just counting down the days until we could leave. But as things typically go, we hit a snag. In April, Carter had to have another tumor removed and while things went more smoothly with the surgery and recovery, the tumor results came back as high risk. As expected, we were really upset. We went through all the necessary steps – ultrasound, aspiration and a consultation with the oncologist the day before we were leaving for vacation. All things considered, things were looking pretty positive and we planned on starting chemotherapy for Carter when we got home from our trip.
We left on a Saturday morning. We had hoped we might be able to grab the van Friday evening but unfortunately we couldn’t pick it up until 8am. At pick up we needed to do a walk through of the van with the owner to learn how to use everything. Then we had to go home again to pack up all our supplies, food and clothes for the trip and of course pick up Carter! We ended up leaving our house later than intended and instead of stopping for a quick hike in Pennsylvania like we wanted, to break up the drive, we had to drive straight through, stopping only for bathroom breaks. To start, Carter was pretty anxious. While he’s completely fine in the car, he was anxious in the van. We put his bed behind the passenger seat so he could be near us but he pretty much ended up laying or standing in between the front seats the whole time.
We wouldn’t be reaching our stop for the night (in Virginia right over the Maryland border) until about 10pm, so we stopped in a Lowe’s parking lot to cook our first meal in the van – chicken burritos! After scarfing down dinner, we powered through the last few hours to get to the plot of land we were parking at for the night. It was our first night in the van and we hadn’t figured out a smooth system yet for assembling the bed, plus we were tired from the drive, so it was a pretty stressful bedtime. Once we got the bed set up and Carter settled in, we attempted to sleep but needless to say, neither human had a successful nights sleep.
Our first real day of the trip (Sunday), we drove about an hour from where we parked overnight to reach Shenandoah National Park. It was a beautiful sunny morning and we were excited to get started. We weren’t sure how Carter would do on the trail – it had been a while since we had taken him hiking and we wanted to start of slow. The first hike we did was the Lands Run Falls Trail. It was a wide fire road. We went as far as the falls, about a half-mile before we turned around.
We did this same thing on a few trails the first day – walk about a half mile or so down a trail, then turn around – so the first day we probably only did about 2-3 miles. We spent most of the day driving along Skyline Drive and taking pictures at the pull out spots. We had reservations for the night at the Big Meadows Campground, which was about half way through the park. We got to our spot in the early afternoon. It was so beautiful with lots of wild flowers. We sat outside before making dinner and enjoyed the sunny afternoon. Carter loved it too!
During the evening we were walking Carter around the campground for one last bathroom break before we hunkered down for the night and we saw a few deer right across the way from our site. The people staying across from us had a fire going and were sitting by it but the deer just strolled right by them through their site and into the meadow. In the picture below, you can see them feeding in the meadow. We went to bed pretty early since we were so tired from not sleeping well the night before. We both had a much more restful sleep thankfully!
Monday morning we started exploring the southern half of the park. Since Carter had done well the day before we figured we could do a little bit of a longer hike with him. We chose South River Falls Trail. It was a pleasant trail winding down through the forest to a creek that would bring us to an overlook of a waterfall.
When we were almost to the overlook, we passed some other hikers that said there wasn’t a great view of the falls so we weren’t expecting much. Jarrett walked Carter during most of our hikes since I’m usually the photographer during our trips. Carter loves to lead the way so they were ahead of me. Jarrett saw a flat rocky outcrop below the overlook and he said “oh I think we can probably get a better view from here….” and they started to walk onto the rocks. All of a sudden Jarrett yelled “holy shit!!” and came running back towards me on the trail. He yelled, “There are rattlesnakes on the rocks!” but I was skeptical. Sure enough, I went up to the overlook and looked down to rocky flat spot and saw three timber rattlesnakes curled around each other sunbathing. That was a surprise – I didn’t realize there were rattlesnakes in Virginia. I’ve done more research since then and have learned a lot more states have them than I thought!
After that excitement, we headed back to the trailhead on a fire road, which was fairly uphill but easy terrain. We got to jump onto the Appalachian Trail for a bit too, which was cool! Once back in the car we continued along Skyline Drive. Unfortunately there was some road work being done so we were limited to how much we could stop for quite a few miles. We did find a nice spot to stop to have our lunch, which is easy to do because all of the overlooks are so pretty!
I will say though, while the views were beautiful, they all looked very similar and they weren’t much different than what we would see back home in New England. Our home for the night was on the Virginia/North Carolina border in the field of a farm. It was private and set up really nicely – the owner provided a picnic table, tiki torches, a fire pit and wood, plus s’mores materials if you decided to have a fire. It was a great place to rest for the night!
On Tuesday we were going to be doing a lot of driving. We got an early start and headed out of Virginia to start our trek to South Carolina. We arrived at Congaree National Park before noon. Our only plan was to walk the Boardwalk Loop. There are other trails at the park of course, but since we were limited on time, we figured we’d get the most bang for our buck doing the Loop. Originally, we wanted to stay for the firefly synchronization at night, but unfortunately when we went to make reservations we saw they didn’t allow dogs or oversized vehicles for the event since parking was limited.
While Carter likes other dogs for the most part, he doesn’t like having other dogs walk towards him while he’s on a leash. Also, the boardwalk was a little narrow. To be on the safe side, we put his muzzle on him to keep everyone comfortable. The first part of the walk wasn’t too crazy – it was a nice boardwalk through the woods but I was wondering where the muddy waters were that you see all the pictures of. After about a half mile or so, the forest started to shift a bit, things got a little swampier, darker and a little more eerie. We reached a spot overlooking Weston Lake and it was here that I saw an alligator swimming around. After seeing so many in the Everglades back in February though, it wasn’t quite as exciting After leaving the overlook, the boardwalk, which had previously been raised, was now lower, pretty much right along the ground without railings. It was a beautiful park but it also creeped me out a bit – I felt like there was a bunch of wildlife laying around in the floodplain where we couldn’t see them, but they could see us – I felt exposed!
We were stopping here and there to take pictures. There was one spot where Jarrett asked me to take a picture of him and Carter, but I was really bothered by it because it smelled SO terrible! After a little back and forth about it and surveying the landscape, we saw a large hog carcass rotting in the floodplain not too far away from where we were standing. After we determined the cause of the smell, we continued on our way and were soon jumped by the squealing of feral hogs. Luckily, they were just a couple of piglets, but we kept moving along just in case big momma was around too. The flora in Congaree was fascinating though and if you go, I definitely recommend going to the visitors center to learn about all the different trees and plants in the area. Once we finished our walk and made our way back to the van, we headed out of South Carolina and up north to Charlotte, North Carolina! We made a pit stop at Concrete Jungle to see Shamila, the concrete artist my sister and I road tripped to see the summer of 2022 (see Sister Road Trip: New York, Virginia & North Carolina – 2022 post), then stopped to get BBQ for dinner. Our journey for the day ended at Stone Mountain State Park in Roaring Gap, North Carolina. It was a really pretty campsite and very peaceful.
Early the next morning (Wednesday), we left North Carolina to head to New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia. Our first stop was Sandstone Falls, which was beautiful! It was an easy walk along a boardwalk, maybe a quarter mile or so, to the viewpoint. The falls were longer than they were tall but still impressive. This area of New River Gorge was a little off the beaten path from the rest of the park, but I’d still recommend making the drive to see it.
It took a while to get over to the Sandstone Visitor Center but we stopped here to buy a few souvenirs and eat our lunch. Then we headed west to the Grandview Overlook. We hiked the Grandview Rim Trail with plans to end at Turkey Spur Rock before turning around. It was such a nice trail – flat, even ground most of the way with a couple gentle uphills. The best part were the rhododendrons that created a tunnel over the trail most of the way. We missed them being in bloom by a few weeks but it was still so pretty. We were almost to Turkey Spur when we decided to turn around – the trail was going to descend narrow stone steps that had a steep drop off to one side and we didn’t feel comfortable doing it with Carter. Overall we really enjoyed it!
We took turns going to the actual overlook by ourselves while the other person stayed with Carter. We figured it’d be better to leave Carter in the van because we didn’t know how big, or crowded, the overlook would be. While I was at the overlook I chatted with an older woman in her eighties who asked if I would take her picture. She was incredible and told me stories of her travels over the years and how she used to white water raft on the New River. I love traveling and talking to random people on our journeys to see what their stories are. It was definitely a highlight of the trip. I hope she’s still out there somewhere having epic adventures!
This night, we stayed at a Cracker Barrel somewhat near the park since we could park overnight for free and we wanted to get a big breakfast the next morning. I brought our iPad with us on the trip and every night before bed we watched an episode of Daisy Jones and The Six which I had downloaded before we left home. We had previously watched this when it first came out but it’s so good that we wanted to watch it again. It was a nice way to relax in the van before bed.
Thursday was going to be another full day at New River Gorge. We started the morning at Long Point Trail which would head out to an overlook. This was another really nice trail – flat and even for the most part – and again, covered by rhododendrons! Near the end of the trail by the overlook, the trail got a little more narrow and rocky. Mountain Laurels surrounded the trail as well as rhododendrons. The end of the trail was edge of a rocky cliff overlooking the river and the New River Bridge. It was beautiful! We all really enjoyed this trail.
I had read about another viewpoint where you could get really close to the bridge and we tried to find it, but the road was VERY narrow with hairpin turns, which was hard to do in the campervan. We ended up turning around and going to the Canyon Rim Visitors Center instead. We took turns doing the Canyon Rim Overlook Boardwalk, a quick 0.6 mile walk along a nice boardwalk and stairs that led that down to a viewpoint of the bridge.
We did another hike at a trail near the visitor center that was beautiful and had an incredible overlook of the river, the gorge and the bridge. It was the Endless Wall Trail to Diamond Point Overlook. This is a must do if you visit the park! We absolutely loved New River Gorge and out of the three National Parks we visited on our road trip, this was our favorite! We stayed at a campground not far from the park but before we went to settle down for the night, we stopped at Bridge Brew Works to get a small growler of beer to drink at our campsite.
On Friday, we were going to be driving most of day. Our goal was to get to Eastern Pennsylvania, near the New York border where we would stay at another Cracker Barrel for the night. To break the trip up, we stopped at Rocky Gap State Park in Maryland to do a quick, easy hike around Lake Habeeb. We didn’t do the whole loop but got out of the car long enough to tire Carter out and stretch our legs. It was a pretty park and I wish we had time to enjoy it longer.
Saturday was the final leg of the trip. We hit a lot of traffic but made it home safely. We had such a great trip and it was so special that we were able to bring Carter with us. We couldn’t have asked for a better family vacation.
Sadly, about a week after we got home from vacation, Carter’s health started to decline. It was almost like he knew our vacation would be his last hoorah. A month after we left for our trip, we had to say goodbye. We were, and still are, absolutely devastated and heartbroken. He wasn’t just a dog – he was a part of us. He changed our lives for the better. There will be other dogs but they will never be him. Looking back at this road-trip will always be bittersweet, we made beautiful memories with Carter, but they came to an end too quickly.
We love you Carter ❤️
📍I acknowledge the lands mentioned in this post are the ancestral lands of the Monacan, Shawandasse Tula (Shawanwaki/Shawnee), Manahoac, Tsalaguwetiyi (Cherokee, East), Congaree, Cheraw, Catawba, Sugaree, Massawomeck, Yesan (Tutelo), Moneton and S’atsoyaha (Yuchi) people.
The Adventures of Suze 
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