Geoff’s got guide experience in fishing, rafting and other adventures.
Okay, the whole world is stretching it, but a big chunk of the Western Hemisphere is accurate.
From Montana’s ice cold waters and rugged back country, to the Grand Canyon, to the southernmost reaches of South America on rivers dammed long ago, to that narrow waist of Central America. Yes, raft guiding was very good to me. There was some fly fishing guiding, and there were some pack trips on horseback that took me to places I am sure no one has ever set foot. Keith and his family have led trips to the high plateaus of Peru building schools.
And we choose to make The New River Gorge our home.
Now, we don’t guide anymore, but we know the area well, and we do love to share our knowledge. Take advantage of our free info and ask us some questions! All guides love the sound of their own voice.
We have some fun and informative videos on Youtube that will really help you plan your vacation. Tours of town, trails and restaurants, to name a few.
We also show how to tell temperature based on rhododendron leaves, if you like that kind of thing.
If you visit our website, you will see full-day itineraries for almost every situation.
Let’s just say you want help with some questions about certain activities or the best time of year to come bird watching or to Girls Club. Okay, maybe we are not Girls Club experts, but… well, yes we are. At least the planning part.
Set up for a celebration at The Meadows with loved ones.
Aw! The first wedding of the year just took place at Opossum Creek!
The seasons fade in and out, and lovers keep joining us to bind their lives together at Opossum Creek Retreat.
What’s the allure of OCR (other than the picturesque perfection)?
Exchanging vows here is something special. Each ceremony reflects the unique bond of the couple professing their “I do’s.” And we make creating your elaborate moment simple. We LOVE helping people get hitched!
Step 1 is choosing a venue. You need: a breathtaking ceremony location, a place to party down for the reception, and comfortable lodging for guests. Lucky for us, we have all three at Opossum Creek Retreat.
Most of our weddings prefer our DIY (do it yourself) package, which includes: up to three nights in the Meadows cabin (depending on the season), outdoor tables and chairs, a 20×40 tent, outdoor restroom facilities, and some fresh flowers to spruce up outside and around the cabin.
But we’ve got more options, and we’re more than happy to help you tie your knot, your bow, your tie, whatever makes your vows your moment to enjoy.
We are happy to do everything except fitting the dresses.
(And, hey, we’ll help find you someone for that, too. We know people.)
Stop the presses! The world will end on Dec. 21. We’re not taking reservationsafter the Mayan calendar expires in 17 days.
Visit us soon!
How are you spending your final 17? Wouldn’t it be quaint to spend the last few days of time as we know it holed up with your loved ones, cherishing each other and the natural beauty surrounding you? We’re all warm and fuzzy just thinking about it. In fact, it would be a downright shame if you weren’t able to visit us before the end of time.
That’s why we’re giving you a little help: $5 off for every night left on the Mayan calendar. Thank you for a great run, and be well in the time and space beyond the end of time!
To be honest, we’re not really sure what the physics of time after time will be. Maybe we’ll see (or otherwise perceive) you there? But we’re crossing our fingers you visit beforehand, just to be safe. Until then, enjoy the holiday season!
Here’s what we’ve learned: there are people who are all about Bridge Day, and then there are people (like Geoff) who’d rather avoid it altogether.
Which one are you?
Either way, we’ve got the skinny on what you can do if you’re here during Bridge Day.
Full Immersion
We have a secret or two for you if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t want to miss a minute of that Bridge Day excitement. Here’s your itinerary:
Right Now: Reserve your spot on one of the Bridge Day shuttles that take you under the Bridge to watch the action from below. Into the Gorge Shuttleswill take you under the Bridge for $20. You do need a reservation.
BASE Jumping on Bridge Day
Friday, October 19: Go to Taste of Bridge Day at Adventures on the Gorge. It’s truly a wonderful atmosphere with a world class sunset. Here, you’ll get to try sample plates from area restaurants and rub elbows with other Bridge Day faithful.
Saturday, October 20: This is the Big Day! Here’s what you want to do:
Get up early. As in, no later than 7am. Have breakfast in your cabin.
Between 8 and 8:30, head towards the Bridge. There are many ways to get there, but if you plan to drive, be prepared for a possibly longish walk from your car to the event entrance.
The gates open at 9am. Your first stop should be at the Official Bridge Day Booth, where you can pick up souvenirs like the official Bridge Day t-shirt and poster. These items have sold out the past couple of years, so get them first.
Take a walk towards the Bridge and check out all of the cool vendors lining the path. Stop for coffee and a funnel cake (no, it’s not too early).
Make your way to the jump platform and check out the BASE jumpers parachuting towards the river. You might even catch a glimpse of one of the catapult jumps, which are new for this year. Yes, we said catapult.
Catch your shuttle to head under the Bridge. You’re going to want to spend some time watching the action from this vantage point. A very cool experience that every Bridge Day fan should have at least once.
Head out of the Gorge and back up on top of the Bridge. Check out more vendors, or go into the town of Fayetteville. They are hosting a Chili Cookoff, a car show, live music, and more during and after Bridge Day.
Sunday, October 21: Grab the last ride on the Gauley River for the year. Rest up and head home.
Full Aversion
Your version of Fear Factor is negotiating a huge crowd and eating funnel cakes while walking on concrete all day and watching people jump of a bridge. Are you and Geoff twins?
Yes, you’d rather avoid the Bridge Day crowds. You’ve been there, done that.You’re looking for a different kind of adventure this weekend.
Now, your ‘aversion’ can be as simple as ‘stay at the cabin’. Check in and don’t leave the cabin until you check out on Sunday. But if the thought of that gives you cabin fever, we’ve got some suggestions.
Babcock Grist Mill
Friday, October 19: Get to town and head straight to Fayetteville for dinner. You’ve got a ton of choices: Pies & Pints, Gumbos, Diogi’s, Secret Sandwich Society, The Vandalian, Dirty Ernie’s. End the evening in the hot tub or lounging by the fireplace.
Saturday, October 20: Get up early and head out for your rafting trip. Hit the New River and catch the fall leaves from the water. Coolest part? Your trip might end right under the New River Gorge Bridge. So yes, you could potentially float right past all of the Bridge Day excitement.
or
Skip the Bridge Day crowds and head north for Babcock State Park. It is close by, won’t be crowded, and is Ossum. Photos of the park’s iconic Grist Mill grace the pages and walls of publications and homes across the world. (Seriously, we know someone who spotted a Babcock Grist Mill photo hanging in their hotel room in Scotland). Check out the mill, take a hike or horseback ride, and then stop for lunch.
Next make your way to Richwood for lunch or just dessert and coffee at a little hole in the wall called Mumsy’s Iron Skillet. It is not to be driven past. In either direction. After lunch, you could head further north to Cranberry Glades. These bogs and wetlands are perfect for hiking, nature-spotting, and autumn leaf viewing.
We’re not the only ones who know how amazing fall in the New River Gorge is – National Geographic thinks so too.
So there you go – your Bridge Day itinerary. Whether you actually go to the Bridge or not.
Yes, we are rule breakers. School does not teach us this skill but we entrepreneurs can’t help it. We are made that way.
And you can be too.
Everyone has rules. I don’t know why but we do. My job has always been to bend or break them. Just ask my parents.
Opossum Creek Retreat has rules just like everyone else. The big difference between us and them is that we are happy to break the rules for you. Well, except the no smoking in the cabin rule. That one is not negotiable.
Let Us Break The Rules For You
I got a very nice note from a future guest about how she had spent 4 hours on our website (OMG! 4 hours! Are you okay? Did you stop for water?), her whole trip was planned when she saw THE RULE about minimum stay. Crushed, she sent a note explaining her situation. As it turns out we have room to make a shorter stay work for she and her lucky husband. He will be so surprised!
We are very fortunate to have a job that allows us to make people happy everyday. Even if that means we have to break a few rules along the way.
So get some really good rule breaking tips. Then get out there and break some rules! Just nothing that might end up with you in handcuffs.
Hmm, unless you can get a home confinement sentence and the judge lets you serve it at one of the cabins.
I see a potential “Cottage” industry here. “Special rates for longer stays”. “Nonviolent Offender Discount.”
“Again? So soon?” (with glee in his voice). “We will miss you, have fun.”
Because if Momma ain’t happy, nobody’s happy!
The Boys Insist on Adventure…
Groups fill The Meadows for lots of reasons. One of the best reasons is Boys or Girls Club Weekends. That’s our nickname for vacations where groups of gals or guys take a trip with just their friends. You know, ditch the significant other, line up some pals, good food maybe a high adventure. Stay at a comfortable, inviting place to relax and catch up at the end of the day like The Meadows.
Imagine this:
First the “guys from work” got together. Yee haw, THE GAULEY (said with a roar)! They went home with such a great attitude, fun stories, and more things they wanted to try here in the New River Gorge, that their families wanted in on the action.
But the Girls Know How to Relax
You guessed it.
The next summer, not all, but some of the guys brought the families back. Again, so cool. So much to do, young and old thrilled to no end. With still more stuff on the to do list.
Next up is Girls Club.
I really like the way women go about this. Us guys must have SOMETHING to do, i.e., a high-adventure, manly endeavor. Fears to conquer. Women, ha. They don’t need the pretense to have a grand time. They can have fun just chilling out, painting nails, fixing food, long hot tub sessions. No need for the events of the day to stimulate conversation but they make great Facebook posts.
Girls Club getaway weekends make Mamma and everyone else happy.
We know you have some people in mind for one of these weekends. We are happy to help you plan.
And that was from the family reunion, not the “Derecho” storm!
About the derecho – we suffered no damage from the storm at the Cabins or our home. Our neighbors and friends were not so lucky. We were without power for 8 days, but everything is back to “normal”.
The family reunion was a huge success! Really, it was “Ossum”.
I had every intention of giving regular updates during the week of my Familial-ish reunion; what we were up to, how it was going , who liked what best and why.
But then reality set in: TOO MUCH FUN! We were too busy ‘reunioning’ for me to talk about it. So a month later, here goes.
All week people were movin’ and groovin’, making themselves happy doing any number of activities (we will talk about ALL the great activities in a future post). Hanging out with each other, getting away from each other, and even fixing stuff. Fixing is always more fun when you have help!
Here's Luke helping me fix a toilet
The single best part of the week (although I was not excited about it at first) was the daily group meal idea. It turned out great. We kept it simple. No one got over stressed (that I saw) about putting on the dog for 40 + people. And because we did not try to outdo each other with fancy dishes, serving standard fare, that made it all the better.
The first night we ordered pizza from Pies & Pints.WARNING: This is important!There are two phone numbers for two locations on the website; one is in Fayetteville (304-574-2200) only 10 minutes from the cabins. The other is in downtown Charleston, WV, over an hour away. Do not call the Charleston location and order 20 pizzas! Like we did.
Now, this could have been really bad. But fortunately, we are a lucky bunch. When the group standing at the bar in Fayetteville got blank stares when asking for 20 pizzas plus all the other good stuff, some brilliant detective work quickly revealed the order had been called into Charleston.
Family Reunion Fun
This is the lucky part: The Brits arrived at Yeager Airport in Charleston a few minutes before the pizza was coming out of the oven at the Charleston Pies & Pints, so we just swung by and loaded up. This makes me laugh and started the week off with a great “TOP THIS MESS UP” story.
For the rest of the week, family groups took turns satiating the masses from The Meadows Kitchen. Nothing fancy: frozen lasagna, chili, hamburgers and hot dogs, mexican grub, and leftovers made up the menu for the week.
Maybe the simplicity helped take some of the stress out of cooking for 40 people down a notch or two. The emphasis was on sharing a meal and some conversation with loved ones, and this was going on in abundance all week. It was magical.
It is a monumental task to organize a family reunion. Let us help you make yours as wonderful as ours was.
The last-minute barrage of questions is in full frenzy.
This is not unusual behavior; it’s just that this time, the zeal my family is demonstrating at this point in the planning has caught me off guard. I don’t know why, because they do everything like this: OVERBOARD.
What you need to understand is that each event (no matter if it is a couple getting away for the weekend or a wedding for 100), has phases.
We're more like friends once you've stayed with us!
1. Inspiration
2. Research
3. Planning
4. Scheduling
5. Planning
6. Reservations
7. Planning
8. Packing
9. Forgetting all the planning
Then calling someone who might remember what was planned.
And then finally calling anyone you may have had contact with because, “OMG I cant find the map”!
This is an excerpt from an actual conversation about our reunion:
“I found the MAP”
“Good.”
“How do we get to where this map is? What State is this in?”
“West Virginia.”
“WEST VIRGINIA? HONEY YOU NEVER SAID WE WERE GOING TO WEST VIRGINIA! Does this place have running water?”
This illustrates that no matter how hard you try, some communication just doesn’t get out to the whole group.
Communication in all its forms is the cornerstone to a good event. Our family has had hundreds of communiques over the past months and addressed each issue more than once.
However in the excitement of the waning hours before departure the brain does weird stuff! People start blurting out questions before they even ask themselves if they might already know the answer. Grown adults become completely helpless and need someone to hold their hand while they decide what to pack.
Here at Opossum Creek, we answer these questions and go through all the phases for total strangers everyday. And then they are not strangers anymore. But if it’s your family you’re dealing with, then they just become ‘stranger’.
The strange people who are my family start arriving on Saturday. I half expect to wake up and they will be sleeping in their car in my yard a day early. It has happened before.
I will keep you posted as to how the chaos progresses and when Murphy shows up.
I am planning for my family to arrive in June. This is a true story and is happening as we speak. Okay, we are not technically speaking, but you know what I mean. Or did you?
That is the really challenge at the heart of a family reunion: communication. Even though everyone in my family speaks English as a first and only language, getting them all on the same page is like herding cats with a pressure washer. If you are lucky it is very exciting and rewarding for a brief moment, but the overall effort is usually futile.
Our fabulous Facebook group page
Here are a few things we are learning (this time around):
Practice makes perfect. We do not plan a family reunion on a regular basis and it shows. Those families that we see here at OCR who make an annual or biannual tradition out of it have the advantage. Expectations have been managed through repetition.
I hate to say this, but someone has to be the point person. This seems to work best if there can be several point people, actually. Food, Lodging, Group activities; all of this must be arranged. Ultimately, someone has to be large and in charge. Personally, I love chaos and mayhem, especially when they show up together! So for me not knowing who is cooking dinner and what it will be are not big questions. But others’ happiness depends on knowing every detail long before it happens, like what type napkins will be in the dinner roll baskets at each meal. So you’ve got to plan.
Knowing the differences that make people tick is helpful because it allows everyone to get the details they need. A Google doc spreadsheet is a great place for all this to evolve. Remember, not everyone will feel safe entering info in this format and you’ll need another method for them to get ideas out to the group.
Also, we are using a Facebook group page and it has been great. It makes for wonderful conversations taking place before the event even kicks off. Still, some folks will not bring certain things up until they confer with others in the group. This helps put things in place that may have otherwise been overlooked, such as who is driving Grama? Because last time she farted and ruined my new car seat…..
We all need to spend more time with those crazy people we are linked to by family ties. Reunions are the perfect way to do just that. But remember, planning is key
I will report back as we get closer to our own event and during said festivities. Until then remember: women are a bowl of spaghetti and men are waffles.
Clicking on the BOOK NOW tab provides cabin availability. It DOES NOT mean you’ve booked a cabin. After you confirm availability, there are several additional steps required regarding potential dates, minimum stay times, group size, and of course payment information.
If you prefer the peace of mind of speaking with someone to book your stay, Anna is amazing!
