WILD AND WONDERFUL WEST VIRGINIA!

West Virginia...another beautiful state!

 

I had so much fun learning about this area and discovered some amazing places along the way. First stop was Parkersburg, WV. I spent the night there in my car in a rest stop. I woke up the next day and heard about a honey festival that was going on that day in a park not too far from where I was at. Inside, there was music, tables fully stocked with different kinds of honey, and glass cases filled with buzzing bees working hard to make their honeycombs.

I stopped to talk to a man at one of the tables and asked if the photo (above) was him and sure enough it was. He said that he would be doing a performance in a couple of hours, so I decided to hang around and watch him put hundreds of bees on his face to make a giant "bee beard".
No suit, no gloves, no nothing. He just went into a mesh tent with thousands of these little honey bees and put a hollowed out block of wood with the queen bee inside and strapped it to his chin. The bees swarmed his face, neck, and shirt. He had obviously been doing this for years and was as calm as could be.

I asked how many times he got stung this time and he answered only a couple. Brave soul.

At the festival I also watched a band playing bluegrass music under a tent. The day was hot and humid but that didn't stop the band members, also brothers, from cracking jokes and having a fun time playing banjos, fiddles, acoustic guitars, and bass instruments. Here is the band the Sheppard Brothers playing at another festival (which I found on YouTube).

http://www.thesheppardbrothers.com/fr_picsandvideos.cfm

Drinking sweet tea and listening to bluegrass was so relaxing. I don't know about you, but I love this kind of music. It has a charm to it that just puts me in a content mood.

Next on the agenda was heading toward the state capitol of Charleston. In my experience with cities, this was not a very large one. For West Virginia, however, it was their largest. I decided to get a room at a hotel and stay there for the night. My room overlooked the Kanawha river and it was a gorgeous site. I watched from my room at the sun went down and a barge carrying coal floated by.

 

 

Another beautiful day in West Virginia and one more to go.

The next day I headed down the old highway 61 and followed what they called the Midway Trail. I stopped in quaint little towns in the hills and went further and further into thick forest covered in vines and moss. It was an amazing drive and I couldn't have been happier having decided against going on the interstate in favor of taking the long way. (Thank you Robert Frost).

The first stop was a small church called Virginia's Chapel. Built in 1853, it was a gift to William Tompkin's daughter (Virginia). This church was used by both sides during the Civil War. Surrounding the church was a beautifully old graveyard. The kind of graveyard that haunts and carries mystery.

 

 

Carrying on down the historic highway, I stopped to eat and met a man that told me all the interesting places to see in West Virginia and how amazing the state really was. I could tell he had a lot of pride in his state. I followed him up the road to a small waterfall where three rivers met. He told me about how during the Civil War, the Confederates gathered on one side and the Union on the other and they shot cannons at each other. It was the pool of water that got me the most interested, however. The man told me that there were catfish the size of trucks down in that part and that no one goes in that lake without a shark cage. The water didn't look it, but apparently it went down 70 feet or so. Now, I'm wondering if he might have been exaggerating some, but I wasn't about to test if the catfish down there could eat me whole or not.

 

 

Another amazing sight was traveling in between these hills that had whole sections of trees and bush completely hidden and entangled with some type of vine. It truly was amazing to see how fast things grow out east compared to the western prairie I was raised on.

The last sight I stopped off at before I was to head into Virginia was The Mystery Hole. A random little shack in the hills that catches the eye with half of a Volkswagen Beetle stuck into the side of the building. I parked in the lot and bought a ticket for the tour into the mysterious hole where the law of gravity seems to bend and alter your perceptions.

There were two others on the tour, a very enthusiastic young couple. We watched as water went uphill and flamboyant manikins begged for our attention. It was a funny experience. I had the strange perception that I had gone back to 1969 and had taken too many drugs. I went back to the car and said goodbye to the couple. Before I left though they offered me a drink. I declined and realized why they were so enthusiastic.

A beautiful state full of random adventures to be had, West Virginia is a place I'll not soon forget. I've decided I'll have to come back for the changing of the leave and to meet more interesting people. And so I headed toward the Virginia State line and into the Appalachian mountains, onward to the next adventure.

 

~K.P~