From there we headed to a town called Lewisburg which was supposed to be some historic town. There were 2 things of some interest there but otherwise an insignificant town. The 2 things of interest were an old confederate cemetery and a Carnegie Hall. The cemetery was a bit interesting because it had grave sites dating back to the late 1700’s. Carnegie Hall was only interesting because prior to seeing this we thought the only Carnegie Hall was in New York City. But apparently there are 4 of them. One in WV, one in NY, one in Pennsylvania, one in Scotland. This one was built in 1902.

After Lewisburg we made it to the Greenbrier. The Greenbrier was built in 1778 and has been host to many famous people, including 26 presidents. It has 710 guest rooms, 20 restaurants and lounges, 55 indoor and outdoor activities and sports and 36 retail shops. Sounds like an advertisement?

The most interesting fact about the Greenbrier is that in the late 1950’s President Eisenhower visited the Greenbrier and decided it would be a good location for a secret underground bunker to house members of the government in the case of a nuclear strike. It was close enough to Washington DC to get people there quickly and protected enough by the mountains. They built the bunker under the guise of expanding the hotel. It was built as an addition to the back of the main hotel into a mountain. The main floor was used as an exhibition hall so people wouldn’t wonder what it was used for. Word never got out about the bunker until 1992, when the Washington Post reported it. After that the bunker was decommissioned. They now give tours of the bunker and that was a very interesting tour. Unfortunately, they don’t allow pictures inside the bunker but the set up was a main room (which was used as a public exhibition hall to throw people off from the main purpose of the building), auditoriums for the house and senate to meet during a crisis, multiple bedrooms and bunk rooms to house all of congress and much of their families, communication rooms, and a completely self contained water, electrical and air systems.

That night we had a great dinner at one of their restaurants and went to the casino afterwards. Jim didn’t like the casino, they made you wear jackets which Jim had to get a loaner since he doesn’t own one.