Mike Breiding's Epic Road Trips 2025
Road Trip
Morgantown to Tucson: 2300 miles
WV→KY→TN→MS→AR→TX→NM→AZ
Trip Report: Morgantown to Tucson
October 1st - 8th 2025
Our first two overnights, with Becky and Tom on Wednesday the 1st and with Doug and Dianne on Thursday the 2nd, were most pleasant and a very relaxing way to start our cross-country trip to Tucson.
On Thursday morning we departed Tom and Becky's and headed north to Salem, WV, where we wanted to check out the Flinderation Tunnel on the North Bend Rail-Trail.
Running parallel to U.S. Route 50, the rail trail extends from the community of Wolf Summit west of Clarksburg at its eastern end to I-77 near Parkersburg at its western end, passing through Harrison, Doddridge, Ritchie and Wood Counties and the towns of Salem, West Union, Pennsboro, Ellenboro and Cairo, as well as North Bend State Park and numerous unincorporated communities.
Source: WikiPedia
On top of the Flinderation Tunnel is the old Enon Baptist Church Cemetery. This has spawned many stories of supernatural activities and ghost sightings in and around the tunnel. You can find all kinds of outlandish stories on the web should you care to go down the rabbit hole.
The Flinderation Tunnel, also known as Brandy Gap Tunnel #2, is 1,086 feet long and was built between 1853 and 1854 by the B&O Railroad. It was originally built with timber but was reconstructed with brick and stone in the late 1860s and later modified in 1963 to add 3 feet to its height.
The 72-mile North Bend Rail-Trail is part of the West Virginia State Parks system. Knowing this, it would be easy to assume the trail would be well maintained and in good condition. As you can see from the above photo, nothing could be further from the truth. Water, mud, ruts, chunky gravel, and broken beer bottles are all to be found in the Flinderation Tunnel.
In 2003 I rode the North Bend Rail-Trail end-to-end. It was a mess then, and apparently nothing has changed since.
Egads! When I saw this ghostly apparition in one of the alcoves, I started to wonder if there was some truth to all the spooky rumors.
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When we finished our tunnel tour we headed back to the car and started the drive south to Dianne and Doug's place where we had an interesting tour of the old family homestead including a log cabin. That is another story I hope to report on some day.
We departed Doug and Dianne's around 7:00am on Friday morning and started the drive to Kentucky's Red River Gorge Geological Area for a loop hike that included the Pinch Em Tight, Rush Ridge, Rough Trail, and Gray's Arch Loop.But, due to poor planning on my part and several navigational screw-ups, we arrived at the trailhead much later than originally planned. The parking lot was packed, and there were lots of people heading to the trail, including kids, dogs, and a squawling baby.
Betsy and I started getting our hiking gear together, and then when the next pack of people arrived and headed to the trail, we looked at each other and both had the same thought. "Do we really want to hike with a crowd of people?"
The answer? No.
And so it was back in the car, and down the road we went to find our way to Cave City, Kentucky, and the OYO Hotel Cave City.
For those of you who may not be familiar with OYO, here is a bit of info.
OYO Rooms (stylised as OYO), also known as OYO Hotels & Homes, is an Indian multinational hospitality chain of leased and franchised hotels, homes, and living spaces, headquartered in Gurgaon. Founded in 2012 by Ritesh Agarwal, OYO initially consisted mainly of budget hotels. As of January 2020, it has more than 43,000 properties and 1 million rooms across 800 cities in 80 countries.
Source: WikiPedia
When we arrived at Cave City, Kentucky, we did not see the hotel at the address listed on the OYO website. There was a hotel there, but not the "OYO Hotel Cave City". When more searching did not turn up our hotel, I backtracked and pulled into the hotel we had seen previously at what was supposed to be the correct address. It was the correct address, but not the OYO, not anymore at least. When I got to the office door, there was a big sign on the door stating, "We are no longer associated with OYO Hotels." You gotta be kidding, right? No, they were not. A woman unlocked the office door, and I asked for a clarification of the sign. I was told the reservation would not be honored, and I would have to cancel it with OYO and get a refund. Grrr...! Now the Great Hotel Hunt begins. Because of its proximity to Mammoth Cave National Park, Cave City has a lot of hotels. Getting a room was no problem since it was the off-season, but it cost us twice as much as the OYO would have. Betsy ended up checking us into an Econo Lodge. We unloaded the RAV, got the room organized, and by then we were both more than ready for beer.
It was warm and breezy, so I got a couple of chairs from the pool, and we moved them onto a grassy area to set up our Happy Hour station. It had been a hectic day, and we were ready to unwind!
After we mellowed out, Betsy made us dinner. We brought enough salad fixin's for 3 nights, including chicken I cooked on the grill before we left Morgantown. And for a treat we got some bacon bits to sprinkle on top, followed by shredded Parmesan cheese and Caesar dressing. Very tasty and filling. When we have a hotel meal like this, we always like to speculate how much it would have cost if we had gone out. How much? Too much.
The hotel was nearly deserted, and it was, for the most part, quiet the entire night.
When I awoke the next morning I got a surprise—many, many bites from something that itched like mad. Of course the first thought that came to my mind was bed bugs. Oh, no!!!
But, after a little research, I soon realized they were not bed bug bites. What were they? chigger bites, lots and lots of chigger bites. After several counts Betsy and I concluded I had at least 100 bites. 100. Now, let me say this—even a few chigger bites can drive a person mad with intense itching. 100? Misery.
Here is what my feet looked like a few days after my Chigger Encounter From Hell. I counted 35 bites.
How many bites did Betsy have? None. Even though she was sitting in the grass right next to me she did not get one bite. Could this be a manifestation of karmic feedback?
Betsy performed an up and close and personal count of my bites. On my butt cheeks alone I had at least 50 bites. I know, TMI! As you might guess, this made for some very uncomfortable driving over the next 4 days.
And just what are chiggers? They are mites, which means, like spiders, they are arachnids.
Chiggers are extremely tiny, and it is very unlikely you will "see" one unless you are looking for them. You will need a hand lens or microscope to see them well. Their presence is best known, instead, by the intensely itchy welts they leave behind, usually where your skin is thin and tender (ankles, backs of knees, about the crotch, under the beltline, and in the armpits) and where tight clothing proves an obstacle to them (as where a belt or elastic band limits their wanderings). (Mosquito bites, by contrast, are usually in exposed places where those flying insects can easily land.) Chigger bites sometimes have a tiny red dot at the center, which is the remains of a scablike tube your body formed in response to the chigger's irritating saliva.
This web article: "Season of the Itch: Chiggers Are Out" starts out with this sentence: "Chiggers are one of the banes of summer here in Kentucky." No kidding...
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Our next overnight would be in Ruleville, MS. The route cut the western corner of Tennessee, staying well clear of Nashville to the east and skirting Memphis to the west.
As you can see from the map above, the route took us through Oxford, MS. On a winter road trip in 2009, I had an interesting and pleasant stay there. I stayed at the Ole Miss Motel near the City Square. In 2010 the room rate was $45.00, and the place was just your run-of-the-mill mom-and-pop motel. As of October 2025 the room rate is $73.00, and the place is being touted as a "retro" motel.
While in Oxford, I visited Rowan Oak, where William Faulkner lived and wrote for more than 40 years.
I saw many fine old southern magnolia trees and willow oaks, some covered in Resurrection fern, (Pleopeltis polypodioides) and took photos of interesting stone houses.
I checked out the University of Mississippi Museum where I saw art by Lou Haney and a very interesting collection of carved wood folk art figures by Sulton Rogers. They have been described as "imaginary, misshapen, and sometimes erotic". Indeed...
You can read more about my 2010 visit to Oxford MS here: "Oxford - Mississippi - A Big City in a Small Town".
We arrived in Ruleville and checked in. I would not say our stay there was uneventful, but I will not go in to the details at this time.
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The next morning we left Ruleville and headed west to Sherman, TX. This route took us across southern Arkansas through the town of El Dorado, where I also stayed over in 2010. In 2010 I stayed at the Flamingo hotel for $40.00. The 2025 rates are $75.00.
El Dorado became a wealthy town during the oil boom in the 1920s, and the architecture reflects that. I had lots of fun poking around El Dorado taking pictures. You can see those photos here:
Central and Southwest States - El Dorado Arkansas to Paris Texas
Continuing westward, we went through the town of Texarkana, where I stopped on my very first Epic Road Trip in 2005. My, how Texarkana has grown in the 20 years since then.
The Breiding kids knew about Texarkana from listening (over and over again) to the song "Cotton Fields" as sung by the The New Christy Minstrels.
"It was down in Louisiana, just about a mile from Texarkana
In them old cotton fields back home".
Years later we enjoyed that tune again as crooned by Credence Clearwater Revival.
The write up and photos of that fist visit in 2005 are here:
Texarkana, Arkansas and Texas
Leaving Texarkana behind, Betsy and I made our way through Paris, TX, where I visited in ????. I can't remember now, and I can't find the trip report.
Then it was on to Sherman, TX, where we stayed in an undistinguished chain motel surrounded by non stop truck traffic all night long.
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The next morning we left Sherman TX and by day's end we were in Carlsbad New Mexico.
This route I could call "Memory Lane" as I have driven it many times. At least once with Betsy. It took us through the towns of Throckmorton (pop 765) and Post TX (pop 3,594).
Again, I will hearken back to my first Epic Road trip in 2005 when I first visited Throckmorton and Post TX.
On Tuesday, January the 5th, 2005 I was driving west on US 380 and I saw a large tree on the right side of the road and a pullout on the left. As I drove by I noticed there was a picnic table and grill of some sort. I pulled into the shade of the trees and had a look around.
The tree I had seen was actually 4 old and beautiful Texas live oaks clumped together to form this lovely grove.
The car shown here was my very first "ERT-mobile, a 1989 Plymouth Reliant which I recently purchased from a neighbor for $350.00 and then decided to go on my first ERT. I pulled out the back seat, installed a roof rack and that along with trunk area held all my stuff for the trip.
Unfortunately, that car met an untimely end, and Betsy nearly did as well. Here she is being extricated from the Reliant to be packaged up and transported by ambulance to a waiting medevac chopper and then to the hospital, where she had surgery on her broken left femur and right wrist and had her fractured C-7 vertebrae stabilized. This happened the day before the first day of the new school year—August 21st, 2006.
OK, back to the Throckmorton Oak as I call it, although it is properly "oaks".
In 2020 I stayed the night under those oaks, something I had wanted to do since the first time I saw them. In spite of both emailing and phoning the Sheriff about my staying there, several deputies came by and hassled me anyway. Good PR.
Here are the Throckmorton Oaks - October 2025. They have obviously "lived long and prospered".
I don't think I could squeeze the van in at this point without a little judicious pruning, and I don't think that will likely ever happen anyway.
And this is farewell to the Throckmorton Oaks. BTW - TxDot abandoned this roadside rest and the table and grill are long gone. More's the pity.
We then drove on into Throckmorton for a short walk about the tiny town.
We stopped by the courthouse for a photo. Betsy is standing next to tablets of the Ten Commandments.
We headed on back down the road and about 140 miles later we were going through the town of Post, TX.
When I drove into Post I could see right away it would be a town worth taking the time to explore. As I drove around the small town and saw all the nice old buildings and old homes I began to change my mind about pushing on to Lamesa and just spend the night right here in Post.
On my first visit in 2005 I had lots of fun exploring the town of Post, and a little excitement as well. While out doing some shopping for an adult beverage, a sheriff's car pulled in front of me. The officer got out and asked me to "stay put" and started asking me all manner of questions. It seems someone had reported a "suspicious character" walking around over by the grade school with a camera. Of course I had my camera in hand and was snapping photos of everything. PERVERT ALERT!!!
You can read all about it in my original report:
Texarkana to Post TX ~ Tuesday January 25th - 2005
We said our farewells to Post and continued the drive on to Carlsbad, NM. We had originally planned to spend two nights in Carlsbad so we could hike up McKittrick Canyon in Guadalupe Mountains National Park. However, because of the government shutdown, we could not find out any information about the access to McKittrick Canyon being open or not, so we cancelled our second night and went on to Tucson the following day.
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We took the scenic route from Carlsbad to Tucson through the Lincoln National Forest, which took us up to an elevation of 8600'. It was a lovely drive, as was much of the 2300 miles from Cabin #18 to Rancho Relaxo. And it was made prettier by avoiding interstate driving for nearly all of the 2300 miles.
We arrived back in Tucson on the heels of another mostly dry summer. For the most part the monsoon season was a bust, with weeks of triple-digit temperatures making for a parched-looking landscape.
But, on October 11, 12, and 13, we had a combined rainfall of 2.35" here in Tucson Estates. The rains came from the remnants of Hurricanes Priscilla and Raymond, and there was widespread rain throughout southeastern Arizona. A very nice "Welcome Back" indeed.
Betsy took a video of the rainfall at Rancho Relaxo and you can see it here.
~Finis
14 October 2025
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Morgantown to Tucson
October 1st - 8th 2025
This year's return to Tucson is going to be a bit different. Typically, Betsy would fly, and I would drive the 2008 van out or fly a couple of weeks after she arrived at the Rancho Relaxo in Tucson Estates.
This time, for better or for worse, we will be making the drive together in our newly acquired 2016 RAV4, the car that brought us into the 21st century. The RAV will be replacing the 2003 Buick that belonged to Betsy's father—we call it the DaddyMobile.
The drive will span the 1st 8 days of October and will include visits to our friends Tom and Becky at Millstone Manor and Doug and Dianne in Hurricane.
There will be three stops for hiking: West Virginia's North Bend Rail-Trail to see the Flinderation Tunnel, the Red River Gorge in Kentucky, and McKittrick Canyon in Guadalupe Mountains National Park, TX.
Betsy and I have been to the "Lupes" before to hike to the summit of Guadalupe Peak. I first hiked to that summit in 2009. In 2015 Betsy and I went to the top together. At 8 miles with 3000 feet of elevation, it was a strenuous hike for us. And that 3000' of elevation gain is all in the first 4 miles. Whew!
Guadalupe Peak: February 2009 and October 2015 summit shots
This time around we won't be going up to the summit. Instead we will be taking a lovely ramble through a beautiful canyon.
In 2022, at the urging of Tucson hiking buddies John and Janet I decided to route myself to the Lupes while on the way back to Morgantown. J & J mentioned the hike up McKittrick Canyon was not to be missed. Indeed! What a hike it was. Now, Betsy will get to enjoy the hike as well.
OK! We are on out way... Rancho Relaxo or Bust!
DAY 1
WV - Route: Cabin №18 to Millstone Manor
WV - Millstone Manor (Weather)
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DAY 2
WV - Route: Millstone to Hurricane
via Flinderation Tunnel
Hurricane (Weather)
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DAY 3
WV/KY - Route: Hurricane to Cave City
via Red River Gorge
KY - Red River Gorge (Weather)
KY - Cave City (Weather)
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DAY 4
KY/MS - Cave City to Ruleville MS (Weather)
KY/MS - Route: Cave City to Ruleville MS
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DAY 5
MS/TX - Ruleville to Sherman TX (Weather)
MS/TX - Route: Ruleville to Sherman TX
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DAY 6
NM - Carlsbad (Weather)
TX/NM Route: Sherman to Carlsbad TX
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DAY 7
TX - McKittrick Canyon (Weather)
Route: Carlsbad NM to McKittrick Canyon TX
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DAY 8
NM - Cloudcroft (Weather)
Route: Carlsbad NM to Rancho Relaxo via Cloundcroft,
Lincoln National Forest and White Sands National Park
AZ - Tucson Estates (Weather)
END - WV to AZ 2025