After our successful visit to Spruce Knob in West Virginia, Beth and I were enjoying a fun, leisurely and scenic drive south, generally paralleling the Virginia-West Virginia border, with Lexington (Virginia) our eventual goal for the evening. The weather was holding steady, generally high clouds and mostly overcast but so far only a sprinkle of rain the worst of the precipitation.

We had just one other county highpoint on the agenda: Paddy Knob, a mostly anonymous bump along the state line that turns out to be the highest point for Bath County, Virginia. We would be approaching it from the West Virginia side, obviously. We took West Virginia highway WV-84 northeast, heading for the state line, which we reached … and overshooting the forest road that leads south to Paddy Knob. We turned around and found the road and started the drive in. It’s about a three-mile drive up good gravel and hard-pack road with a gain of about 1,300 feet to the highpoint, which our little Chevy Malibu handled nicely. Where the road reached a highest point, we parked and were obliged to walk the remaining 100 feet or so up an older grass-covered side road to the summit. Beth decided to stay with the car, and I made the hike in just a few minutes. The summit is open and grassy, featuring the concrete footings of an old lookout tower. I circled the area once to be “sure” I had been in Bath County at least for a moment, then walked amid the humpy area. Trees block any views below. Satisfied, I returned to the car and we drove down the road and back onto the highway.

The remainder of the day was spent driving the beautiful scenic highways toward Lexington. We followed mainly US-220 and VA-39 through the Goshen area, which features a rock-studded river recreational area, a favorite of Beth’s during her college days in Lexington.