Trip to Thomas, WV: August 19-22, 2025

I've been to Thomas, WV, before - sometimes we take camping trips in PA, KY, or WV, where the GPS takes me through this tiny town of ~600 people, 25mph (as most mountain towns are), with trans flags on many homes and storefronts, the words YOU ARE WELCOME shining in neon as you pass, and several art galleries supporting Appalachian artists of all genders and sexualities. One time I stopped but I was too tired to explore too much; I walked the river path, browsed BLOOM to find many hard-to-leave cryptid artworks, and planned my future there. Then I got back into my car and drove on.

After passing through a handful of times I decided that I'd like to visit, so this year as my birthday trip I let Thomas whisk me away. (You can even a pic-in-passing that I took of Thomas in my photo album from my Big Bone Lick trip last year.)

I stayed at Five River Campground in Parsons, WV, which is about 15 miles away from Thomas. I picked it because of the price, frankly, but it ended up contributing to the experience of the trip, and now next time I'd like to go back to explore Parsons more closely, too. Parsons doesn't have several gluten-free friendly restaurants (at least one dedicated) so I'll still be in/around Thomas, but it has a music store, lots of gorgeous trails to explore, and a bluegrass festival which I now know to plan for next time. (I'll get to that later.)

On the way in on the first day I had to pass through Thomas to get to Parsons, which was incredibly exciting! This was like descending on a long-distance friend's home after being apart for a few years (though I think I drove through as recently as last year on one of my trips). It was also very hot. Hurricane Erin was supposed to come early, but it didn't hit NC shores until later during the week, and therefore was relatively non-disruptive during my Tues-Fri trip in WV. (For those who are geographically apathetic, West Virginia is not next to North Carolina, so while I may have seen some building clouds, I wouldn't have seen any impacting rain unless the hurricane made its way further up the East Coast.)

Because the hurricane crept up slower, the temperatures crept down slower, so instead of a beautiful, gloomy 65'F week, I had a beautiful, sunny 88'F week that was at the very least not too humid. I arrived to the campsite around 4pm and after dripping sweat from building the tent, sat in my car with A/C on full blast while my portable fans charged. The tent was an oven. It was breezy out but with only partial shade I was baking outside, too. I imagine when I tell people I'm going camping they're thinking I'm doing something more down-to-earth than sitting in my car with the A/C on, but sometimes it do be that way.

When I reserved the campsite I picked the one called "Eagle's Nest" because the park website called it the best view in the park. I agree. Although the partial shade meant partial hellfire in the summer sun, I got a great view of all surrounding mountains, and I imagine if the campgrounds were filled it would have been a lovely sight with the RV/tent neighborhood around you. Campsites were on the river with a calm waterside view for each, and the campground had bathrooms with flushing toilets and private shower rooms with a sink and toilet. The land was really well taken care of and I enjoyed the softness of the lush green grass on my feet without worrying about spiky brambles or rocks. Under the trees there were a few acorns to be wary of when barefoot, but I love a campsite where you can take off your shoes without watching your step too much.

The drive in was beautiful, then I spent the first evening hanging out at the campsite; once the sun went down it was a perfect temperature to read, enjoy a small fire, and stare at nature.

When I'm camping, I wake up with the sun. Sometimes I can get back to sleep, but not always. On Wednesday I woke up with the sunrise. I peeked out of my tent to see if it'd be worth getting up to watch it, and saw the reflection of yellow, pink, and purple on the river. It was gone within minutes; this trip really taught me the value of watching the sunset/rise from end to end. It could be the most gorgeous thing you've ever seen, but if you walk away for just 5 minutes you could miss the best part. I was happy to see the sunrise and get a few pics to share though they don't capture well the beauty of what I witnessed.

My approach to this trip was fairly straight forward: I'm going to camp near Thomas, WV, and then go there and spend all my money. I knew I'd also do some surrounding sight-seeing (and I did) but the main purpose of this trip was to explore the little LGBTQIA+ friendly town that I've passed through a few times. Otherwise, I looked up stuff to do that was within 2 hours of my temporary home using terms like "caverns near me" and "scenic outlooks near me." I am not the type to plan a trip or even necessarily become familiar with what's available to me before the trip; I like to plan my room & board, then follow my impulses while I'm there. As long as I have a place to go to bed, it doesn't matter what I do during the day. (This is, generally, how I travel when alone, unless I'm re-visiting and catching things I missed the last time.)

On Wednesday, I explored Thomas in the morning after eating a chocolate chip zucchini muffin at Tip Top Coffee, then found myself at Blackwater Falls, several overlooks, the Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge, lost in the mountains on gravel road trying to find a trail, then to Lindy Point Observation Deck where I took a moment to breathe in the glory of West Virginia mountains... then drove back to Thomas for late lunch/dinner at The Purple Fiddle before returning to the campsite for more reading and existing. The Purple Fiddle fed me a delicious Greek hummus wrap with the best olives I've ever had and it hit the spot for the whole week.

F%*CK YOUR DATA CENTER

All around Thomas, Parsons, Davis, and surrounding areas, signs were posted against a data center/power plant. I only saw one sign for it, and it was at the bottom of the stairs faced the opposite direction. Otherwise, there were stickers, signs, and art scathingly rejecting the idea of it. I overheard conversation about it; it's not just the coming of the data center, it's the location and the precedent. It's too close to Thomas and neighboring towns without any consideration of impact to the population, and it's worrisome as the first major initiative to do this - how many other "small mountain towns" will be impacted going forward after someone OKs this one?

I looked it up and found out that not only was the air quality permit approved this week, but (unsurprisingly) only after a sneaky agenda. The community wasn't "informed" of this - someone found out and asked around. Even the mayor was unaware. When they finally got together to get answers, they'd found that Charleston lawmakers had already breached the topic: they'd moved to take away local government oversight, therefore revoking residential input. And guess who gets the tax revenue? (The state.) Details were shrouded in secrecy and the application for a natural gas-fired power plant independent of the electric grid was all they had. Suspicions grew quickly that the power plant would ultimately power a data center.

When I got back from vacation, catching up with news I read about the droughts in TX and the surge in "community guidelines" to "take less showers" and "drink less water" so the data centers can survive. AI isn't the future, it's now, and it's being prioritized over humans.

All night I read ghost stories from the Haunted West Virginia book I bought at Blackwater Falls. It sparked some ideas for my Halloween mail and I started sketching out a zine of ghost tales from the mines. I watched the entire sunset and read a book about Antarctica until I finally fell asleep.

The next day, Thursday, was my birthday! I woke up with the sun but it didn't bring me such a beautiful sunrise, which was okay because I wanted to go back to sleep anyway. When I finally woke up for the day I took a shower and saw a sign for the bluegrass festival, Pickin' in Parsons, in the shower unit. On my birthday? for ME??? I got very excited about the idea of going to this festival, though I was still planning to go to Thomas for breakfast/brunch. On the way out (and through Parsons) I was very confused about the lack of music. I looked it up, and according to the internet, the festival happened at the beginning of August. Confused, I referenced the photo I took and saw the date.

WOMP WOMP.

At the very least, this is how I found out the festival was ON the campgrounds where I was staying, so I pocketed that information for later. This would be fun for a group and I told my camping crew about it - we might go in the next few years!

I did a lot of fun stuff on Tuesday, and Wednesday I was less motivated. I liked the idea of spending most of the day by the tent, especially since it was a little cooler than it had been the last few days as the big poofy clouds started rolling in. It was set to rain a little that night and I was excited for the sun to go away. Plus, I didn't want to be stuck out in some non-paved area, lost, like I was the day before, when rain puddled into mud. I'm a pretty adventurous driver but I did not want to get stuck out there with no service.

I found myself at Happy & More Bakery & Cafe to try their selection of gluten free things, where I had a grilled cheese sandwich with ham, a cup of Black Dog coffee (recommended), and a snickerdoodle cookie to go. Instead of cake, that was to be my birthday treat. I walked around some of the Thomas City Park trails for a while, but kept running into designer vacation homes that left a bad taste in my mouth. I guess along with data centers, mountain towns that become tourist centers also have to worry about rich people buying up the lakeside property and ruining the view with their ugly homes.

Thinking of my ghost tales, I decided to find a cavern to explore instead (knowing that "explore" really just means "take a tour"), so I ended up driving an hour to Smoke Hole Caverns in Seneca Rocks, WV. I passed a lot of the WV destinations (such as Seneca Rocks and Dolly Sods) and added to my future camping list.

I think in some ways if you go to one cavern tour you go to them all. I think every cavern tour I have been on has involved them turning off all the lights and telling a story about how you'd go completely blind if you stayed there for 72 hours. (That's not true, you wouldn't lose your sight forever, it would just take some time to adjust back to light as your eyes learned not to need it. Some animals go blind, but it's not a universal fact.)

Also, it seems like the majority of cavern tours are simply: "the people who owned this place spent hours staring at the rocks trying to find shapes we can include on the tour, plus some rock facts." Still, I love the opportunity to walk inside a mountain and see all of the cool shapes that water leaves on minerals over time. I love to learn about million-years old formations and how people historically used those caves. The caverns got this name due to distance from Smoke Hole Canyon and they were opened to the public in the mid-1900s. Before that, they were used by moonshiners, Civil War deserters, and Indigenous communities.

After I left I looked more into it and found out that the previous owner sexually assaulted a young employee and someone related to the young employee burned down the gift shop. The former owner and arsonist are both in prison. Since then they've rebuilt the gift shop, but the cavern itself has been significantly altered for the tourist attraction. That's a bummer - as if the world by itself with no modifications isn't significant enough.

I returned to the campsite with Wild Huckleberry chocolate, my snickerdoodle cookie, and with the food I brought I was ready to chow down and spend the rest of my afternoon at camp. I read more, wrote a lot, started my Halloween mail, and napped. For my birthday I got much weather. It rained with the sun out, and although there was no rainbow it made for a glorious sunset! I slept quickly and well that night.

With Friday came the end of my trip. I might have spent more time in WV exploring, but everything was muddy after the rain the night before. After packing up my tent I left my mark on Wplace by drawing a tent and campfire near my position, stopped in Thomas for a breakfast bagel and yam brownie (!) at Tip Top Coffee, then drove home.

On the way out, I stopped at a few places to try to capture the scenery, but quickly felt the exhaustion run over me and decided I just wanted to get home to my cat and bed! It was sad to leave the mountains as you drive closer to Virginia suburbs, but I was happy that the big poofy clouds stayed with me all day.

I definitely have a thing for wind turbines.

Resources: Template from here (I made some edits) and background from here | MyAlbum | CapCut video editing

Sitting in the car enjoying the AC.

Eagle's Nest at Five River Campground

Tip Top Coffee art.

Cool tech art in Thomas.

Grafitti in Thomas.

THE pride flag that brought me here.

Some boardwalk history.

Turbines on the horizon everywhere you go here!

My tent on the river.

The 2004 sign I thought was for this year.

Breaking camp.

I am begging Tucker County to use a different font.

I definitely have a thing for wind turbines.

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