New River Gorge National Scenic River
South through Charleston, past the capitol building, and south on a scenic highway alternate to an interstate/toll way. 
This road was in much better shape than the interstate and went through a number of coal towns. Similar to logging towns in the northwest. Interesting to see.
A couple of hours and we arrived at Babcock State Park. Very nice campground. Removed from major (even minor) roads, very spacy level campsites with electric, dump station and water available if you need it, and WIFI. Yahoo! Got set up and then drove toad to visitor center of New River Gorge National Scenic River.
The rivers name is the ‘New River’, it is not a freshly created entity. Very near the visitor center is the New River Gorge Bridge. The longest steel span bridge in the western hemisphere and third highest in the United States. Walked to a viewing platform and then another.
New River Gorge
Bridge
Believe me, it is a very long way down.
Drove across bridge and down narrow road to bottom of canyon to view bridge from bottom.
Top of bridge.
Underneath bridge.
Saw this and more along every road
New River Gorge Bridge. Could stack Washington Monument and two Statues of Liberty on top of each other and still have over 40 feet of space to the bridge.
Back up canyon to town of Fayetteville – old coal town. Neat old buildings now holding antiques ,etc. Similar to Old Town Auburn.
From there south to visit the historic site of Thurmond. Twisty narrow road to the bottom of a canyon to town site on banks of New River. Road was not primary access to Thurmond. Town was hub of several railroad lines and spurs that serviced coal industry. The main street of town was literally three parallel railroad tracks running through town. There is no road. All the stores, banks, etc. front the tracks with only walking room between them and the tracks.
Main street. Road crossing tracks goes to homes on hill.
At its height this was a very busy place. More than twenty scheduled train stops per day. Town is pretty much gone. Some stores remain, there are a number of old homes on hill above town site (one or two of which are populated, population is three), and NPS has restored depot as visitor center. Tracks are still in use both for moving coal and by Amtrak (three stops per week).
Returned to state park on another scenic road.
Note on West Virginia: Very scenic – everywhere you look is green and there are cataracts and falls along most roads, large and small.
Having been on small roads now I can state that pretty much universally, the West Virginia roads SUCK!
Current travel map:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?hl=en&authuser=0&mid=12x4dHvzJbvb0UcaUtz2NjLNihZE
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