PA Highpoint 
MD Highpoint
Knowing the fall colors will be at full peak this weekend in the western part of the state, Blake and I talked about a bunch of different places we could go. We ended up choosing to Highpoint Pennsylvania and Maryland. I wanted to book a hotel that would be in a good proximity to both highpoints. The total driving distance between the highpoints is 1 hour and 20 minutes. I started to book the Microtel Inn & Suites in Hazelton/Bruceton Mill but Priceline kept timing out on me every time I tried to book it and eventually I found out that the hotel was already booked up and Priceline had not updated their listings. (No big deal at all. Plenty of other hotels). This hotel is also located next to a major penitently. I ended up coming across the Comfort Inn Grantsville-Deep Creek Lake. Moderately priced hotel and it has all the basic essentials we needed for the 2 night trip. It also had an extra bed in case Blake’s mom wanted to join us. The hotel also advertised a HOT breakfast which is nice. The hotels we have stayed in lately have been about 50/50 when it comes to hot breakfast vs bagged breakfast. Unfortunately the breakfast ended up being a bagged breakfast.
I got off work around noon and met Blake at the house. We packed up the car, loaded up Taylor and Gander and set off for our weekend getaway.
Knowing it would be dark by the time we reached the Hotel and just about everything there is to do around the area is outdoors we decided to make a couple of winery stops.
Our first winery stop was Chateau Merrill Anne https://chateaumerrillanne.com. We were the only visitors during our stop and it was nice to once again have a personal one on one wine tasting. A lot of wineries have not gone back to actual tastings and for the ones that have, it is much appreciated!
Our next winery stop is Quievremont Winery https://www.quievremont.com. The menu provided by the winery had a red tasting and a white tasting. We purchased one of each and the tastings ended up being tasting flights. The wine list provided did not have a lot of wine notes and that was disappointing. We love to know wine notes as well as what each wine pairs well with. We finished our tasting and both decided that none of the wines jumped out at us and we did not purchase any bottles. While the wine was not as good as we hoped (remember, wines taste different to each people, just because we didn’t like it, doesn’t mean you wont) the location of the winery was beautiful and well landscaped. Side note: the winery allows dogs!
We did manage to catch the sunset before leaving the winery.
We stopped by Main Street Mill Restaurant http://mainstreetmillfr.com/ located on the Historic Main Street in Front Royal for dinner. The restaurant offers both indoor and outdoor dinning. Taylor was not her best self during our visit and it made for a harder dinning experience, but she is a toddler and that is just life with a toddler. Blake had a seafood bisque and I had cheese fries for our appetizers. For our entrees, Blake had the meatloaf and I had the Southwestern Chicken. All of the food and the service – fantastic! This was a great find for dinner. (in the photo below, you can see the old train tracks)
The entire Main Street in Front Royal is a quaint historic downtown. We look Taylor to the pumpkin displays in the gazebo that are set up for photos. She loved all of the pumpkins.
We got back in our car and drove another 2 hours to our Hotel – Comfort Inn Grantsville-Deep Creek Lake.
Having goals for the weekend of the PA and MD highpoint we knew in the morning that due to the rain we had to change our plans. Not knowing much of what to do in the area, I got on the TripAdvisor App and looked for things to do in the area. I checked TripAdvisor while dinning at The Roosters Nest for breakfast. The Rooster’s Nest is a local county restaurant with great food (so much so we ate here 2 more times). Blake had the Steak, Egg and Cheese Melt and I had the Breakfast Pizza. Once we finished breakfast, we decided to check out Downtown Cumberland, MD. Downtown Cumberland is home of the C&O Canal National Historic Park visitors center (Cumberland Visitors Center). Hoping to get our Cancellation Stamp, we head for the visitors center. Unfortunately the visitors center is closed. They do have signs on their door saying they have someone there and to call and an employee will come down to provide information, etc. I called the number and was told they had 2 employees that recently quit and no employees were working, however the gentleman said he would be there tomorrow if we wanted to come back for the stamp.
We saw the scenic train for the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad above us in the station and decided to go upstairs to check it out. A scenic train ride was about to depart and we thought about taking it to see the mountains but with the weather being on the bad side, we decided to continue exploring the area. Plus the ride is 4.5 hours long and we wouldn’t get back until about 3/3:30 and the rain was supposed to clear up around 2:30. We did book a future visit on the train for the kids this upcoming December. Taylor watched the train depart the station.
We walked around the downtown area for a bit and read signs on the history of the area.
After exploring the area, we sat down for a wine flight at Charis Winery.
The wine flight included 4 wine and all were delicious. We had a hard time decided between a red and wine to purchase. I highly recommend stopping at this winery for a tasting or a bottle. Charis Winery also has a distillery on site and an olive oil bar.
Goats being my favorite animal, Toasted Goat Winery https://toastedgoatwinery.com seemed like an appropriate next stop. Toasted Goat is located in Frostburg, MD in the Gunter Hotel. The tasting room for the winery is located in the Hotel’s Speakeasy (this is actually the site of an old Speakeasy). Blake and I did a tasting consisting of 1 white and 5 reds. We purchased the bottle of white but all 6 we tried were fantastic.
Once we left Frostburg, MD, we headed for Shanksville, PA – the site of the Flight 93 Memorial. We arrived at the National Memorial Park and immediately we were both filled with emotion. The weather also made for an even more emotional experience. The memorial park features, the main visitors center which contains artifacts and information from flight 93. Photography is not allowed in the visitors center. Just past the visitors center is the memorial site that contains the wall of names of all of the crew and passengers that lost their lives on 9/11/2001 as well as a bolder in the field to mark the location of where the plane went down. At the exit of the memorial park is the Tower of Voices, a 93 foot (flight number) musical instrument consisting of 40 chimes (number of passengers and crew members).
Wall of names 
Boulder representing crash site 
Signifies the flight path 
PA Highpoint: Mount Davis
4:35 – We arrived at the trailhead for Mount Davis highpoint. No other cars were in the parking lot and we thought we would have the high point to ourselves.
Hike: Mount Davis Trail
Distance: 1.97 miles
Elevation gain: 118 feet
Weather: 48 degrees/cloudy
Avg. Pace: 22:24
The hike through the woods was exceptionally beautiful with the fall colors. We stopped a few times to look at all of the leaves. We arrived at the summit about 23 minutes after we began our hike.
Along with signs and a benchmark at the summit, there is also an observation tower. The tower is above the trees and allows for 360 views of the mountains. We were really hoping for more sun to highlight the fall colors but due to the rain we didn’t get lucky. We did get to take in some of the sunset from the top of the tower. We didn’t stay at the top of the tower long because it was very windy and chilly. Plus it is small and other people were coming and going. (Yes we were the only people on the trail, however if you want to quickly check off a high point, there is a parking lot that is right at the tower, this access is also ADA friendly).
Before hiking back to the car we made sure to take Taylor out of her backpack carrier for her to walk in PA. This is her first time being in PA.
We arrived back at the Trailhead and took our end of hike selfie and Taylor/Daddy picture.
Before leaving the area to head back to the hotel, we stop by the Baughman Rocks access.
Blake, Taylor and I are all able to check off another high point!
Blake – #6 (WA, VA, NC, WV, TN, PA)
Taylor and Nicole – #5 (VA, NC, WV, TN, PA)
We wanted to get back to the hotel at a decent time to get Taylor in bed early. Plus with Blake being the huge Washington Capitals fan that he is, he wanted to get back to watch the game. This game is also a good game for us because it was against the Tampa Bay Lightening. I was born in Tampa and I have always been fans of Tampa teams (especially the Buccaneers – long before people really knew where the Bucs were, prior to Tom Brady). To be funny when the Capitals play the Lightening I also cheer for Tampa Bay. Friendly competition.
Needing somewhere to eat, we stopped at the Rooster’s Nest for dinner. Grantsville does not have a lot of options for restaurants and we both thoroughly enjoyed our breakfast and figured it was a safe option. Like breakfast, dinner was great and filling.
We head back to the hotel, get Taylor in bed and try to turn the Hockey Game on. We turned it onto NBC-Sports and for some reason it was CBS. I was able to pull the game up on my phone. All in all this was a better option with less noise and light for the sleeping TOT. The game went into overtime and guess who won????? TAMPA BAY!!
The next morning, we waited for Taylor to wake up before getting up. We like her to wake up on her own as she loves her sleep. Once TOT woke up we fed her, got ready for the day and packed up. We go back to The Rooster’s Nest for a 3rd time for breakfast. This time Blake got the Breakfast Pizza and I got the Breakfast Quesadilla. The staff are very friendly, at the time we were the only table in the restaurant and our server talked to us the entire time and helped with Taylor when she was dropping things. It was a nice interaction and morning talk before heading out.
MD Highpoint: Backbone Mountain (Hoye-Crest)
11:05 We begin our hike to the MD highpoint. I read a lot of reviews on the paid App I used called Alltrails (highly recommend for hiking as it offers offline navigation). Many of the reviews were negative – no views, made a few people angry because of logging that was done on private proterty, poorly marked, no views from the highpoint, etc. As always, we like to find out for ourselves, plus this will check another highpoint off our list.
We pulled up to on the side of the road where there is a sign that says Maryland highpoint. The spot to pull over gives about 8 cars a place to park. Not much parking at all and you walk back towards the old logging road to begin the hike.
Hike: Backbone Mountain (Hoye-Crest)
Distance: 2.49 Miles
Elevation Gain: 682 feet
Weather: 48 degrees/partly cloudy
Avg. Pace: 29:54 ( I did forget to stop my app for about 7 minutes while packing the car up)
Just like the reviews said, the first 1/2 mile is a logging site, however from the way the site looked, it appeared to have been logged about a year ago, plus it occurred on private property. Blake and I both had to see forest destroyed by logging, we do however know it is a fact of life. The logging did open up nice views of the valley that would have otherwise remained unseen.
As for the review with poor signage, that was incorrect. Tree along the trail had HP with an arrow on them as the blaze. Also at the very few switchbacks, there were signs with arrows.
The neat thing about this hike is that the majority of the hike occurs in West Virginia. It isn’t until you reach the summit, it changes to Maryland. After a very long continuous hike to the summit (2 turns over 650 feet of elevation gain), we made it to the summit. The views from the summit were incredible.
We took our mandatory summit pictures.
We could not locate a bench mark at the summit but a sign and mailbox marked the spot. The mailbox contained a log for people to sign that reached the summit as well as a sign to hold.
I snapped a couple pictures of Taylor and let her play for a few minutes before hiking back down.
One of the trail marker signs had an arrow pointing towards a small side trail with the MD/WV border. We wanted to check it out. Sure enough in the middle of the woods is a Bolder indicating the MD/WV border.
We got to enjoy the views of the valley on our hike back to the car. Our hike down was also a lot shorter than our hike up, we did have to be careful due to it being such a steep incline, the decent can be tough on your legs.
We made it back to our car and got to check another highpoint off our list!
Blake – #7 (WA, VA, NC, WV, TN, PA, MD)
Taylor and Nicole – #6 (VA, NC, WV, TN, PA, MD)
We really enjoyed being able to complete 2 more high points in the same weekend. It is very helpful when they are a little over an hour apart.
We did not have a lot of service on our cell phones and were unable to get GPS, we decided to drive and eventually we came across enough cell coverage to map us home.
Being so close to Seneca Rocks, WV, we had enough time to take a picture. Seneca Rocks is special to me because it is the first place Blake and I ever went together for a weekend vacation. Blake has been going for years and years and I was overjoyed when we went because he wanted to share it with me. Last year we took our daughter there for her first time when she was 6 months old. We didn’t have enough time to hike the mount today, we were however able to get a fantastic picture of the sun lighting up the rocks. (I was also able to get my cancellation stamp in the visitors center).
We had a great weekend and made lots of memories. Checked off 2 more high points off our list and Taylor added another state to her list.
States Taylor has visited: VA(obviously), NC, TN, KY, MD, DE PA, WV, CO, MT, WY, ID, (TX and IL Airport), (WA/OR in my belly).
Nic of Time - Travel 