A Little Blog Modification And WV Trip Continued - The Greenbrier Hotel And Resort

Since my buddy Dave has announced that he is giving up most of his blogging, it got me to thinking about mine. I believe my blog is as they were meant to be - my journal - where I can go back and find recipes, pics, our travels and so on, thus I have no intention of quitting right now or I would miss all of that documentation, plus it gives me something to do.  I have recently been posting every three days but I don’t have many folks stopping by to read quite a few of them and so I had an epiphany.  I can keep writing up my blogs to get the documentation I need but I don’t have to publish all of them but rather just the ones that I think you will find interesting and hopefully about more than just food.

Greenbrier Hotel pic from the web.

Growing up in WV, as far back as I can remember, at least into junior high, I recall hearing about White Sulfur Springs, WV and The Greenbrier Resort – it was a favorite of President Eisenhower and Slamin Sammy Snead was the club golf pro.  All of my life I have wanted to go there for a stay and since we were visiting family in northern WV, we decided it was now or never for a stay at the Greenbrier on our way home.  And since our neighbor Steve had worked in the area in the past and had also always wanted to stay there, he and Pat joined us for the three-night visit.

But before we left the Fairmont area (see the last post) I had to eat Marion County hot dogs one more time and after trying them at three different places, I decided I preferred Woody’s so we went there for brunch on our way south.

While the online trip planners recommended driving via the interstates, we took the scenic back roads from Fairmont, WV to White Sulfur Springs, WV which gave us the opportunity to see more of the countryside than whizzing down the interstate and Bev got to see the very hilly and very curvy roads I learned to drive on.  US-250 from Fairmont to Grafton was especially gnarly.

Along the way we stopped at Snowshoe Mountain Ski Resort and were shocked at the lodging growth since we were last there about 30 years ago.

Then we stopped at Cass Scenic Railroad State Park and looked thru the store and had an ice cream.  The old logging railroad used Shay Steam Engines (gear driven in lieu of piston driven) and the track had switchbacks going up the mountain.  

The scenic RR wasn't running this day so not many folks around.

Then it was just up the road to the worlds largest radio telescope at Greenbank, WV so located because it is one of the quietest places on earth. (Interesting short read about it on Wikipedia)

We arrived at the Greenbrier Resort about 5pm and were greeted by these views of the entrance.

We were met at the entrance and our luggage and car were handled while we proceeded to check-in.  

I forgot to take a pic of our room but it was similar to this.

The first evening we looked around a little and ate supper at the very nice Forum Italian Restaurant in the resort.

I had octopus which I was a little disappointed with the amount of it (two very small pieces) but the others enjoyed their meals.  Octopus is okay but I won't have to get it again.

More about the Greenbrier to come.

Photos can be slightly enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

7/29/25 event date