The Morgantowner: Fayette County, West Virginia and Floyd County, Virginia

I've been visiting one county per month since we moved to Morgantown in July, 2012, with an interruption from March 2020 until now. I was behind even then, so I need to hit twenty-eight counties in the next fourteen months. I know this sounds obsessive, but bear with me. I figured if I did the county that was due this month (I have a list through June 2022) and the county closest to it, I could be everywhere by next June.

I left Wednesday, the 26th and came back Friday, spending Wednesday night in Fayetteville, West Virginia and Thursday night in Floyd, Virginia. I took masks with me, but generally didn't wear them.

It's 147 miles south from Morgantown to Fayetteville, and another 138 miles southeast to Floyd, Virginia.

I'm imagining the Universe was sending me a message, as usual, mixed. I enjoyed being off on my own, exploring new places,. Neither town is that big a deal, but there is plentiful gorgeous scenery nearby. New River Gorge in Fayette County is now a National Park, and Blue Ridge Parkway runs through Floyd County. So maybe the Universe said "Get back on the road."

But coming back, I was not feeling so hot digestively, and I missed the turnoff north of Beckley to U.S. 19, leaving me on the West Virginia Turnpike ($12 in tolls) through Charleston, adding a half-hour to my trip and about thirty miles. Not a big deal, except for the accident south of Charleston that blocked traffic for an hour and a half. My plan was to get home by four, nap for an hour, cook dinner and go with Joe to services at 7:30. Instead, I got home at six, exhausted and bedraggled, having only eaten a cereal bar at 4 P.M. for lunch, with bottled iced tea, which I hoped would remove my headache. It helped. Joe suggested I should have used the machine we have that tells you where to turn. There was construction on the Turnpike, and while the exits were open, the signs telling you where the exit led were down. Also it poured down rain all the way through West Virginia.

I felt good Saturday, but Sunday, I had a low fever and no energy. Mister Worst-Case Scenario, as Joe calls me, imagines I caught COVID, despite my fully vaccinated status, because the unmasked people in these rural counties, including children, could have passed me a variant. Or perhaps, hiking in the woods along Blue Ridge Parkway in shorts and a polo shirt, a tick bit me and now I'll have Lyme disease. The Universe says "watch out."

I met some fun people in Fayetteville, "The Coolest Little Town" and I ate at Tudor's Biscuit World, a staple of West Virginia chain restaurants, for the first time. Late afternoon Wednesday, I visited New River Gorge National Park, newly designated. I walked the 128 steps to the place where you can see the bridge best. Three young people joined me, a talkative girl, who said she was a WVU student here in Morgantown, and two taciturn men with her, both smoking cigarettes, despite "No Smoking" signs posted all over the park.

Oak Hill is the larger town in Fayette County, so I cruised through there in the evening, while it was still light. Parts of it are pretty suburban/country, but the main part of town looks like it has seen better days. I found the "mall" on U.S. 19, a long strip of stores, half of them closed, including the Shoney's, where I thought I might get dinner. I went into a Kroger store and bought a small yogurt, a single serving of Cheerios and an orange, and had those for dinner back in the room.

I had breakfast in the motel Thursday, and took off for Floyd, Virginia, over the mountains, about forty miles south of Roanoke. I arrived close to noon and ate a chicken sandwich, my first chicken since Passover, in a pharmacy/lunchroom on the main drag, U.S. 221. I walked around a bit, checking out the obligatory monument to Confederate soldiers in front of the court house. The cross street, State Road 8, hosts some tourist shops, including a record and CD shop, much to my surprise. The owner stocks country, bluegrass and hillbilly music, much of it from that area and going back to historic recordings of the 1920s. I was determined to find something, and bought a Bela Fleck album, where he worked with African musicians, and an acoustic Jerry Garcia album. I stopped in the tourist place, where the woman working there piled me up with brochures. I picked out a hiking spot she suggested on the Blue Ridge Parkway. There were one, three and ten mile marked hikes from there. I started on the three-mile hike, but soon realized one mile might be enough. It was. I was exhausted, and crawled back to Hotel Floyd, where there was a 4:00 check-in time. It was just after four. I napped for at least an hour.

It seemed most of the town was closed down until the weekend, when there were music venues opening up and a tourist scene, some of it, I gathered, for the first time since the pandemic began. There is a walkway from the back of the hotel to the main part of Route 8. A small farmers' market was going on, and I bought a cinnamon roll and took it back to the room for later. Starting out again, I saw a little shopping center with a storefront Democratic Party office. Floyd County votes nearly two-thirds Republican, so I wanted to see what a Democratic Party person would have to say. I encountered 87 year old Jane Griffith, reading a thousand page biography of Robert Moses by Robert Caro from 1974. We talked for nearly an hour. She spent most of her adult life in Port Townsend, Washington. Joe has a cousin who lives there, but we have not been. Her husband was an Episcopal priest. When he died, her son, who runs a gallery in Floyd, asked her to move there. She had high hopes for Tara Orlando, who is running for Delegate in the Democratic primary.

I left her at seven for Dogtown, a bar/ restaurant serving mostly pizza and beer. It was mobbed, but I waited patiently at the counter, and ordered a salad, a pizza and a Diet Coke. I sat outside in the beautiful evening weather, not too hot nor too humid. There were groups of young hipsters out, drinking beer, all of them smoking. There were some children out, too, with parents and dogs. The balcony where I sat overlooks a city park. The salad had grapes and goat cheese. It was enough for dinner, but I ate half the pizza and took the rest to my room where there was a refrigerator. In the room I ate the delicious, but disgustingly fat and sugary cinnamon bun from earlier. I got to sleep about 10:30.

I had fun. I loved being in a different place from home, different scenery, different people. I don't mind driving, and I had CDs I brought with me and the two new ones. Even the trip back, for all the grief I had, was a route I had not taken before. I guess the message from the Universe is to continue traveling, just remember your age, eat better, and take it easy.

Here are the pics: