The Morgantowner: Elk County, Pennsylvania

Maybe it was a mistake to do this. Last week, June 25 and 26, I did an overnight trip to Elk County, Pennsylvania, about a four-hour drive from Morgantown. Ridgway, the county seat, is roughly halfway between Pittsburgh and Buffalo. This was supposed to be my ninety-sixth county visit, but I missed Delaware, Ohio, Delaware, Pennsylvania, The District of Columbia and Dorchester, Maryland, so it is only the ninety-second. I visited Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, in February, two months behind schedule, because of a funeral in December, and because I was sick most of January. After that, the pandemic hit, and travel was pretty much over.

I visited my regular doctor at WVU Medicine on the twenty-second, and I asked for an antigen test, because what I had in January seemed a lot like a relatively mild case of COVID-19. Relatively, because I was sick enough to not leave the house for ten days, and for not more than an hour the next ten. The test came back negative, meaning I probably had something else, but people in the field told me that many of the tests are unreliable and that the antigens clear out quickly. All that means is that I could get sick all over again.

Pennsylvania has red, yellow and green classifications for reopening of Counties. Elk is green, meaning just masks and distancing. All counties are out of the red category, which was stay-at-home orders. There have been only nine confirmed cases in Elk County, and three probable cases. There are fewer than 32,000 people in the county. In Pennsylvania, new cases are down, as opposed. to West Virginia, where they are going up, mostly in prisons, and among high school seniors this year who visited Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and came back sick.

So Thursday, after our 7 A.M. trip to "senior hour" at Kroger, where many of the staff thought wearing a mask was a joke, we made breakfast, and I packed up. I may never go back to that Kroger. I made a reservation at a non-chain motel just outside of Ridgway, and bagged a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a banana for lunch on the road. Google took me up I-79 to Pittsburgh, through downtown and up PA-28, then on some scary back roads to Ridgway. I stopped half-way in a far northern township of Allegheny County, bought a bottle of iced tea and a bag of baked potato chips at a convenience store and found a park to sit in and eat.

Once in Elk County, I saw there were hunting lodges and resorts for hunters along the road. Pennsylvania has forest land set aside specifically for hunters. I visited Main Street and found the courthouse and the chamber of commerce tourist bureau, where a nice woman loaded me up with pamphlets and maps. I checked into the hotel, where I had to wait for a surly young man, not cute, to greet me. He had me fill out a form and gave me the carbon copy and a key. I thought I was in the last century. The motel was mostly empty, and the room was clean, but unadorned. There was a c.1960 room air conditioner on. I napped for an hour and woke up freezing. Thursday night, I turned off the air conditioner and put on the heat.

I headed back to Main Street to look for dinner. I thought there might be something at the downtown grocery store, but nothing I wanted, and I needed to sit somewhere. There was an Italian place "under new management" down the street. They had moved out half the tables, and the staff all wore masks. Masks are rare in West Virginia. Since I'm not eating meat, I ordered cheese manicotti, which came with a salad and an enormous piece of good bread, of which I only consumed half.

I walked to the edge of downtown, just two blocks, to find a historic house. The owner, O.B. Grant, owned a tannery along the Clarion River in the 1800s, and apparently cut down most of the native hemlock in the area to supply tannin for tanning hides. Near there, along the river, is a rail-to-trails. I walked down about twenty minutes each way. It's like our trail, along a former railroad line by a river, but not paved, even in town. There is lush vegetation, somewhat different from in Morgantown. I was just amazed at how in their short, cool, summer all kinds of plants cover every available inch of territory, intermixed with yellow and purple flowers. There was a sign on the trail to wear orange to protect oneself from hunters. I saw a few other people on the trail, including a woman and her dog, both clad in orange, with the dog illegally off-leash. The dog came over to me and said "Hi," as friendly dogs will do.

Sunset Thursday was at 8:52, one minute later than Morgantown. I headed back to the room by eight, skipping the ice cream parlor on Main. Unfortunately, there was an ice cream place just before the motel, an old-fashioned drive-in. I got some soft ice cream for $2.35. I handed the high-school-age woman a twenty and she rang it up, with the cash register showing $17.65 in change. I fished in my pocket. "Here, I have the thirty-five cents," I said. She was totally flustered. Trying to be helpful, I added "You can just give me back eighteen dollars." She had to go check that with an older woman, maybe her mother, who put. it all into her calculator, and verified that the register would be correct anyway, if she took my thirty-five cents and gave me eighteen dollars back.

I spent some time on the internet and went to sleep with the heat on in the room.

The motel said they had a "continental breakfast." That wasn't true, so I feasted in the room on the half bag of potato chips and half a bottle of iced tea from lunch Thursday and a couple of prunes from a bag I had brought with me. I went out to look for. a house west of Ridgway, which I was unable to find, so I turned around and drove to St. Mary's, the largest city in Elk County, with about 13,000 people. Ridgway has just over 4,000. I found a historic chapel south of downtown, near a Wal-Mart, lots. of fast-food places and car dealerships. Back in town, I found some other historic places, and walked around a bit. It was sunny and cool, pleasant. From there, I drove north to two towns along U.S. 219, Johnsonburg and Wilcox. Johnsonburg has a beautiful downtown district, completely vacant. There is a branch library across the street. from the historic colonnade, the Brick Block, and just up the street, a smelly paper mill. Nearby is a state park with a lake, so I stopped there for a pic. People were out in boats. I took back roads to Wilcox, a town at the north end of Elk County. I found a historic house there. I also saw a disturbing number of signs and banners with the name of the current President. A sign on a. business said "A Deplorable Lives Here." I took my picture and headed back to Ridgway down U.S. 219.

I parked on the corner of Main Street, where 219 turns east. There was a Chinese restaurant which I thought had a sign that said "Carry-Out Only" Thursday night. Friday they had a buffet set out for lunch for only $7.00. The person at the counter was a young man, maybe college-age, who spoke perfect Pennsylvania English to me, but spoke to the cook, probably his father, some form of Chinese. They had moved some tables against the wall to provide spacing. I forewent the chicken dishes I usually eat at these buffets, and filled up on noodles with vegetables, egg drop soup and mushrooms. It was enough.

I headed home via U.S. 219 to U.S. 119 just south of Dubois. In southern Pennsylvania, U.S. 119 is a back road, but the highway is a toll road, and I enjoy the scenery. Once you enter West Virginia, you are only seven miles from our house. I didn't take my "water" pill Friday morning, and only stopped once for the bathroom, at a Sheetz gas and convenience store near Indiana, Pennsylvania. While in Ridgway, almost everyone was masked, in Indiana they were not. Traffic was backed up around Greensburg when I came by. This route was shorter by fifteen miles than the way I went up, and took about ten minutes longer.

It's a little scary to be out, to sit in a restaurant, to stay in a strange motel. Pennsylvania has been better about masks and social distancing than West Virginia, and especially in a rural area, I felt as safe as I might being out in Morgantown.