Craig County, Virginia

I try to be home for shabbat at Tree of Life here in Morgantown. I also try to get away once a month for two or three days to a different county within three hundred miles of here, any state, in alphabetical order. This hobby has been hampered by more and more responsibilities thrust on me (or taken on voluntarily) as a Morgantown City Councilor. I'm also getting over my fourth illness since Thanksgiving, and we are planning a much-needed and long-delayed trip to California to see friends and family at the end of the month.

 I've managed to see eighty-two counties in the months since we moved here in July 2012, and I'm nothing if not persistent. The eighty-third, scheduled for this month, was Craig County, Virginia, in the mountains near Roanoke and on the border of West Virginia. Usually, I schedule a three-day trip to a place more than two hundred miles from Morgantown. But Craig County has just over five thousand people, and its county seat and largest place, New Castle, has a population of 153. The others live out in the country somewhere.

I felt a need to get away. I love Joe and our cat and our temple and the people who go there, but sometimes I need to be off by myself, to not have to care for or listen to anyone, to not have to worry about the leaky drain in the upstairs sink or what I forgot to buy at the grocery store.

So I left Friday and planned to be back Saturday, taking back roads, increasing the time to New Castle by maybe a half hour, but reducing the mileage to 216, courthouse to courthouse. The only places I could find to stay overnight in Craig County were country rooming houses with a family or a couple who rent rooms or have a spare cabin on their property. I'm trying to get away, not meet new people, and in a county that voted seventy-eight per cent for the current President, I don't want to talk to or stay with strangers who might make me uncomfortable talking about my life.

So I booked the "Usual Chain" near Roanoke Airport, about twenty-one miles out of New Castle. It's an older (1960s?) resort-style place with rooms facing a garden with a swimming pool. I was delighted that there was a sign at the registration desk that they wouldn't rent to anyone who lived within thirty miles. I've been places like this where one person rents a room and invites sixty friends and family to drink by the pool on a Friday night. That didn't happen here.

The back roads yesterday (Friday) took me through Pocahontas County, one of the most rural and beautiful counties in West Virginia. I drove past the famous Green Bank Observatory, saw the sign for Snowshoe Resort, watched the shifting clouds and rain sprinkles, the passing parade of mountains, the new green of the trees and the purple and white wildflowers. I was near the Greenbrier Hotel, owned by our absentee Governor.

I brought a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and an apple with me for lunch and I had lots of water. I saw a convenience store/restaurant/gas station on the road about noon and thought to get some iced tea. I was about to reach for a Diet Coke, there being only sweet tea in bottles, when I asked the proprietress if they had "unsweet" and she offered to get me a cup  from the fountain drinks, and even asked me if I wanted "Sweet 'n' Low." I declined that, but I was touched by her kindness.

The last stretch of the trip into New Castle is through Jefferson National Forest, over mountains on a slow, twisty road. It was sunny and warm and scenic enough to get me to turn off the CD player and open the windows.

New Castle has basically two streets downtown, each about three blocks long. There is. a grand Courthouse, with the obligatory statue of a Confederate soldier out front, a small community store, and a larger market (not super), two convenience store/gas stations that will make you a pizza, an ancient hotel, now a museum run by the local historical society, some restored log cabins, a new building with a dentist's office and a Subway, a post office, city office building and a library.

I visited the library, small and crammed with books and DVDs. There is a sign outside that says "Visitor Information" so I came in. The librarian gave me a street map of the county. I asked about the Appalachian Trail, which passes through the county. It's far and off bad roads from New Castle, but she pointed out a parking lot along 311, the main road from I-64 to New Castle and then to Roanoke. That part of the trail is in Roanoke County, just over the line, so I was doubtful. I noted that the librarian had a pack of Marlboro Golds on her desk. I bought a VHS tape of "Midnight Cowboy, " which Joe has never seen, and a paperback copy of John Irving's The Hotel New Hampshire from their "Library Friends" sale. It was 4 P.M. and 84 F., so I thought I would check into the hotel, sleep for an hour, and maybe come back to town for pizza or a sub for dinner, then hike a bit when it was cooler. I had trouble following the directions to the hotel and wandered through Salem, ending up sleeping from 5;45-6:30, once I located the hotel. There were expensive restaurants nearby, which didn't interest me, and a place called "Country Cookin'." I decided to go there. You order a meat dish and a side, then they have a salad bar with other sides and dessert. Too many desserts. I was good at first. I had a piece of salmon with a dry baked potato, and just a little macaroni and cheese and a lot of salad. Then I went overboard on the desserts. Feeling like I should exercise, I checked the time of sunset (8:18) and decided to head out to the part of the Appalachian Trail just inside Roanoke County. It was farther than I remembered and I pulled into the parking lot just at eight. A board at the trailhead warned about how steep the trail is, the need for water and good shoes, how easy it is to get lost. I only had a few minutes before dark, so I went ahead without all that. There were two groups of campers out in the park; one had a fire. Mountain laurel was blooming. I panted up a not-too-steep incline, crossed a bridge, and came to a stream. From there, the trail switched back and up a steep hill. That's where I turned back.

I got lost again driving back to the hotel. Luckily, I have a smartphone and Google maps. I watched a bit of "Meet The Fockers" a silly movie that I saw when it came out because Barbra Streisand and Dustin Hoffman play a married couple. I turned it off after a half-hour. Normally I would have checked emails or Facebook, but it was Shabbat, and lately, social media has become just another responsibility, so I didn't look at anything.

Google Maps said it was 267 miles from the hotel home. Going back to New Castle would cut the mileage to 250, and add very little to the time. It was 74 F. when I left Roanoke, but it soon started to rain, and things cooled off into the 50s as the rain came down and the elevation went up. I stopped for gas in New Castle  (cheaper than in West Virginia) and I was surprised that I didn't have to pay before pumping. I asked the woman inside at the convenience store and she said "I know just about everyone around here, and I know their car, so no one can get away with anything." While I was there, two men came in together, one pushing a stroller with a baby in it. I'm not going to speculate about that.

I left the motel just before nine, and I was home by three this afternoon. I went on I-64, US 19 and I-79, faster, a little longer, but less time than the way I came yesterday. Less interesting, too. The weather was much cooler, mostly in the 50s, with periods of severe rainstorms. I was in our newer Honda, a pleasure to drive.

I was glad to get away, and I don't mind driving. I need to make more time for myself, to not devote so much effort to social media. Like everyone else, I fret about climate change, and worry that I'm not doing enough, especially as much as I drive. I take a reusable water bottle with me, I don't use plastic straws, our car runs relatively clean and gets over 40 mpg on the road. That's what I can do. I'm an American, and I like road trips and Diet Coke. That's just who I am.

I plan to write three more blog posts: one about our friend Art, who died the night before Passover, about the disturbing Morgantown City Council election, which I won by a hefty margin, and one about my April trip to Coshocton County, Ohio. Hopefully, I'll find time to get them done.

Craig County Courthouse, with the obligatory Confederate statue.

Inscription on the statue. "His Race"?

Old Hotel, now a museum and headquarters of the Craig County Historical Society

Me on the Appalachian Trail. The camera corrected for how dark it actually was.

Overlook on Highway 311 on the way in to New Castle, Friday

Victorian House in New Castle, Saturday morning

Main St., New Castle

Log cabins, restored, Court St., New Castle

Craig County Library. The librarian told me she's hoping for a new building

Protest signs against Mountain Valley pipeline, proposed by Dominion Energy

Chesterfield County, Virginia

I have to drive home tomorrow, possibly in time for a 4:30 meeting and a 6:30 showing of the film "RBG," about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Still, I want to do this now, because I haven't (yet) written about my April journey to Chester County, Pennsylvania.

This month, I visited Chesterfield County, Virginia. It is to Richmond what Chester County is to Philadelphia, both a suburb and a different place. Google Maps suggested driving to the Washington Beltway, then west and south to pick up 95 through Richmond, south to Chesterfield Court House, the name of a place, and the location of, um, the courthouse. That route was 327 miles, which is too far in my algorithm. They suggested a shorter route, through Cumberland, Maryland and zigzagging southeast, that was six minutes longer and only 293 miles. I had other ideas. The direct route looks like US 119 from downtown Morgantown through Grafton and onto US 250, which runs from Lake Erie to Norfolk, across the covered bridge in Philippi, then on to Elkins and across the mountains into Virginia. I figured I would pick up I-64 in Staunton, Virginia, a pretty town I have visited, and it would be easy from there.

The reason Google doesn't suggest 250 is that it is mostly a two-lane road which twists and turns over a number of mountains. It is somewhat treacherous and a slow drive. It's also gorgeous. It being May, I assumed snow would not block my route, which can happen in winter.

The drive was fun, and beautiful, the temperature dropping from 82 to 69 in the mountains, with pouring rain added as a challenge. For the first time, I wished our 2012 Suzuki were a performance vehicle, with more power and better handling. It did take me more than seven hours to drive, even though I didn't stop much. I went from Monongalia County's courthouse to Chesterfield County's shiny new government complex in 293 miles.

The motel, a branch of "The Usual Chain," is in Bellwood, mainly a jumble of cheap motels and gas stations off I-95 in an industrial area south of Richmond in Chesterfield County. It was close to 7 P.M. when I showed up, so no nap. I asked the desk clerk where to eat besides McDonald's and Burger King (both visible from the motel), and she suggested a Chinese place, a few blocks away. She didn't recommend walking, but I did. It wasn't far, on combined US 1 and 301. No sidewalk. I had chicken lo mein and egg drop soup, hot water with an egg dropped in and a plate of greasy noodles and chicken with a paper sack of fried crispy noodles. On the way back I stopped at a gas station/convenience store, where i bought an orange. The clerk, a young Arab guy, not bad looking, with a few extra buttons open on his shirt, scowled at me. How could he not be angry? I smiled and batted my eyelashes at him as a friendly gesture. At least he knew I wasn't a hostile white guy.

I tried to watch television a bit in the room. I saw the finale of "Dancing With The Stars." I was glad Adam Rippon won, although I gave a lot of points to Tonya Harding just for doing it. Of course, the two figure skaters made the finals. And the football player, whose name I didn't catch, was sexy enough. Still, the commercials annoyed me. I tuned them out while catching up on Facebook.

Richmond is an independent city, and most of the city south of the James River was annexed out of Chesterfield County. Manchester, the original county seat, became an independent city, then asked to be annexed to Richmond. I figured I would visit that part of Richmond this trip. I picked five historic places from The National Register in Chesterfield County and five in South  Richmond. I also, typically, looked up a big park, a Reform synagogue, a college, a shopping mall and an independent bookstore. I found all of these in Chesterfield County and more. I left the motel at 9:15 this morning and started with the south end of the county.

Virginia State University, the nation's first post-Civil War college for African-Americans (Negroes in the usage at the time) is at the far south end of the county, near Petersburg. It was farther away than I wanted to go. I visited instead the Chester campus of John Tyler College, a two-year institution with two campuses in the county. First, I looked for Point of Rocks, a plantation house on the James River. It's on private property and a sign at the entrance says you have to make an appointment in advance to see it. I moved on to the college campus, pretty, small. I noted magnolia trees and others I didn't recognize.

Chester is the largest place in Chesterfield County. Like Baltimore County, there are no incorporated towns, so everywhere is a "Census-Defined Place." Chester has a new, old-looking development with stores and apartments above. It didn't look like it was flourishing, although it seems like a good idea.

I had seen the old court house on my way in, but i went back today and visited the museum in the replica of the original courthouse, from 1754, torn down for the new old courthouse, constructed in 1917. I learned about the native tribes, the English settlers who came from Jamestown early in the 17th century, the story of Pocahontas, who lived nearby, and the massacre carried out by Powhatan tribe members against the English in 1622. There was a lot about tobacco, too. I found out that the monument to Confederate soldiers is from 1907. Conventional wisdom is that these were built in the time when "Jim Crow" laws, mandating segregation, were coming into place, and were intended to intimidate African-Americans. I would suggest that forty-two years after the end of the Civil War, the Confederate Veterans were in their sixties, and wanted to be remembered after they were gone.

West of the Courthouse is Pocahontas Park, a Civilian Conservation Corps project from the 1930s and early 1940s. This is a major park, now surrounded by suburbs, with well-marked trails, an amphitheater and two lakes. It comes from the same inspiration as Coopers Rock in West Virginia, only on relatively flat turf.

Kingsland is listed as a historic house across I-95 on the street where my motel is located. Wikipedia says it was moved in 1994 and reconstructed. It's apparently not at the address listed.

I looked also for a road marker on US 1 and 301 at Falling Creek. This is where the first North American Iron Works was built around 1620 and the United Daughters of the Confederacy put up a plaque at the first American wayside pull-off early in the last century. There is a park along the creek, fast-flowing and full after quite a bit of heavy rain. The Powhatan massacred all the workers at the mill in 1622. It was rebuilt later for metal and later grain, but only a few ruins remain. There is also the remains of a 19th century bridge, the last in Virginia, partially destroyed by flooding after Tropical Storm Gaston in 2004.

By this time, it was 12:30, and I was hungry. I saw online that there was a Wegman's on US 60, west of Richmond, near Midlothian, and thought about lunch there. Route 150 is an expressway around the south and west  sides of Richmond, and I took that from US 1 ( Jefferson Davis Highway, still) to US 60. I headed west on US 60, clogged with cars, and lined with auto parts stores, fast food joints, and a hundred little shopping centers. I stopped at 1 P.M. at Chesterfield Towne (sic) Center, the big enclosed mall. It's one floor, has a Macy's and a food court. I  was going to visit there anyway, so I thought I would just eat in the food court. I didn't want to make Wegman's an extra stop. I went for a chicken gyro, figuring it at least had lettuce and tomato on it. It was huge, and came with fries, which I ate, drowned in ketchup, which is not a vegetable. At least I didn't have sugar in my iced tea.

I couldn't find my lightweight jacket when I left the house yesterday, and that jacket dates from 2011, so it could easily be replaced. There is an H & M for men in the mall and they had a lightweight jacket I liked for $34.99. I thought I might get it after lunch and checking out Macy's, where I found Kenneth Cole and Calvin Klein dress slacks on sale, regularly $85 and $95, respectively. I tried them on in my usual size, and they were too small. I could wear the Coles, but not the Kleins. Turning into my mother, I said "I'll lose ten pounds and they'll fit," and bought them anyway. The clerk who took my credit card was a short guy about my age, bald and with a mustache and wearing slightly dressy jeans, so dressed as I dress. His name tag said "Sonny" so I assume he is Filipino, as they have names like that. They don't have the Kenneth Cole jeans I found at Macy's in New York in December 2016, and have pretty much worn out.

I returned to H&M and looked at that jacket and some shirts I liked. I know I'm 68 and fat, but I like to dress hipster. People often say I look "dapper." Two young women were working in the front of the store, chatting with each other. I tried to catch their eyes, but they studiously ignored me. Just to see if there was anyone else working in the store, I walked to the back. Sure enough, there was another woman at the cash register. I looked right at her, but she wouldn't acknowledge I was there. I walked out. I guess maybe it's the policy of H&M not to wait on people they don't think should wear their clothes.

I had one more place on the National Register, a pretty brick Gothic-style Baptist church from the 1820s out US 60 through Midlothian almost past the exhausting parade of colonial-style shopping centers. From there I headed back near the mall, then north to find the nearby Reform synagogue. It is set in a woodsy neighborhood of colonial-style houses and shopping centers, a relatively modest modern building.

My last stop in Chesterfield County was a bookstore, specializing in old books. I arrived there at 3:45 to find that they closed at 3 P.M. It was only fifteen minutes back to the motel. I fell asleep at 4:25, woke up once and went back to sleep until 5:30.

I heard thunder when I woke up and saw a torrential downpour out the window. I turned on the TV news and found that there was a "Severe thunderstorm watch" until 9 P.M. But the weatherman's map showed that the storms were passing through, and after a few minutes, it had stooped raining. I decided to head up US 1 to historic Manchester, in the City of Richmond, but once the county seat of Chesterfield County, and also some of the old tobacco factories and riverfront neighborhoods in South Richmond. The weather had cleared up where I was, but north on US 1 the sky was deep black. As I entered Richmond, it started to rain, then pour. It got so bad, I pulled into the parking lot of an auto repair shop to wait it out. Meanwhile, I could see water up over the curb on the street. After about fifteen minutes, I decided to head back south. It was like in those public service ads that say "Don't Drive Into Standing Water." I did anyway, as did the few other cars on the road. It was probably two feet deep in spots and still raining. The radio said there was flooding on the roads. No kidding. But once I left the city, it all cleared up again. I continued south on Route 1, past where I was staying back to Chester, figuring I could get a bagel and a cup of yogurt at a grocery store, or maybe find a salad bar. There was nothing but auto shops, Mexican places and the worst of the fast food chains. I finally stopped and asked Google maps to find me a Kroger. There was one nearby, near the old courthouse, but it was 7:20 and they had just finished cleaning out the salad bar, and the bagels were gone. I bought a banana and a pear for later, and figured I'd eat at McDonald's. Then I saw a Shoney's across the street. I drove there. People were looking dazed on the parking lot, and seemed to not know what to do with their cars. I chalked this up to the age of people who eat at Shoney's.
Then I saw the sign "Tuesday $6.99 Senior buffet." Oh.

Long story not as long as it could be, I embraced my senior citizenship, and although I told myself I wouldn't eat too much, I just had a little piece of fried chicken, and some bread pudding and banana pudding and chocolate pudding, and two kinds of pasta. Still, I had baked fish and salad and fruit. And "unsweet" iced tea. I'm not losing any weight. It was starting to rain and it was getting dark (15 minutes earlier than in Morgantown) when I left, stuffed. It occurred to me that the old people at Shoney's are not any older than I am, nor any more dysfunctional in their cognitive abilities.

I noticed I was wary here, as I often am in The South, including in my native Maryland. Although I didn't get into Richmond as planned, Chesterfield is fairly cosmopolitan, despite the sprawl and the apparent lack of public transportation. There has always been a large African-American presence here, and now there are many Latin-Americans and Middle Eastern people. I tried to be relaxed and jokey with the few people I met; they weren't having it. I didn't see recycling or much bicycling infrastructure. Lots of churches, and colonial-style shopping centers, fast-food places and car washes. West of Richmond, it's a bigger suburb and  on Midlothian Pike (US 60),  just an annoying parade of retail with no thought to planning at all.

Still, I give the county a "good" rating. The President beat Hillary Clinton by a few points, but didn't get a majority. Many voters went third-party and the Democrat won in the last Governor election. Other than the "minority" people, I think the well-off suburbanites (a large chunk of the population) can see through the demagoguery and the lies and, even if they usually vote Republican, are done with this guy.

There's incredible history here, going back to the earliest English settlements, through the Civil War (Lee stopped here between Richmond and Appomattox), and of course, I didn't see Richmond, which is right here adjacent. A woman I asked about sunscreen in Macy's raved about a particular neighborhood in Richmond, where I could get non-allergenic sunscreen, and was disappointed when I said I wouldn't get there this trip. If I lived around here, I would more likely be in the city than out in Chesterfield County.

Home tomorrow (Wednesday). I still have to figure a route.

Old House Picnic Area, Monongalia National Forest, Pocahontas County, West Virginia, where I stopped for lunch Tuesday on US 250

Monument to Confederate Soldiers, 1907, Chesterfield Court House

Chester Campus, John Tyler Community College

New mixed-use development, Chester

1917 Chesterfield County Courthouse

Replica of the 1754 Courthouse, used as a museum

Amphitheater in Pocahontas State Park

Beaver Lake, Pocahontas State Park

Civilian Conservation Corps Museum, Pocahontas State Park

Water lily on Beaver Lake, Pocahontas State Park

Roadside Monument on US 1, placed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy

Partially destroyed 1828 bridge over Falls Creek

Bethel Baptist Church, early 19th century, Midlothian

Temple Or Ami, near Bon Air

Caroline County, Virginia

I just looked at my last two posts, and how busy I was with the election and its aftermath, and how I skipped town in March to visit my sister and Caroline County, Maryland. I try to leave town monthly to visit a new place. I didn't go anywhere in April.

This month, I've done two trips. My sister Robin bribed me and Joe to visit her over Mother's Day weekend with tickets to see "Fun Home," a musical about a young lesbian coming out and her closet-case father. Alison Bechdel, a cartoonist, wrote the original book as a graphic. It bothered me almost as much as "Maus," Art Spiegelman's graphic about his father, a Holocaust survivor. We had wanted to see the play in New York, but missed it. We enjoyed our weekend with my sister.

Still, I was determined to take off and see another county I had not been to before the end of May, having missed April. Since I'm doing this alphabetically, the one after Caroline, Maryland is Caroline, Virginia. Both counties are named for Caroline of Ansbach, the wife of King George II. Bowling Green, the county seat of Virginia's Caroline County, is 77 miles south of Washington, D.C. and 42 miles north of Richmond.

I left about 1 P.M. Sunday, since Joe hinted that I should go to the end-of-the-school-year Sunday school picnic. I had fun at the picnic. I don't often see the Sunday school kids and parents, and I enjoyed being with them. I managed to stay awake driving all afternoon, with the help of one of the chocolate bars  Joe ordered with a wrapper showing a picture of the temple to give the kids. There were lots of them left over.

I stayed at the cheap branch of my usual motel chain at the south end of Caroline County, a place called Ruther Glen, consisting of a bunch of truck stops and fast food places. My two dinners were at a Denny's and a Golden Corral, at truck stops near an interchange on I-95. The main roads through the county are U.S. 17, which runs from Winchester to Norfolk in Virginia, and U.S. 301, once a bypass from Baltimore to Richmond, now mostly suburban. I-95 and U.S. 1 run along the west side of the county, away from Bowling Green, the county seat, and Port Royal, the original port on the tidal Rappahannock River. There are nineteen places in the county on the National Register of Historic Places. I mapped them all out before I left Morgantown.

After a quick breakfast of empty carbs at the motel this morning, I headed out in the rain and cold to look for my places. It was warm in Morgantown Sunday, so I came in a polo and shorts, figuring it would be warmer in the coastal flatlands to the south and east of us, but it was cool and rained most of the morning. I had a flannel shirt and jeans packed just in case, so that's what I wore today. I worked from the south end of the county, where I stayed near the truck stops, to the north, where Port Royal is located.

I stopped at the county's visitor center and ran into Peggy Smith, the worker there. She told me that her family has lived in the county since colonial times and they were English. I guess this was because I noted that her accent sounded like my friend Spencer, from Norfolk, and a little like my Canadian friends who say "a-boot" for about. I told her how my family has only been in the US since the late 19th and early 20th century. "So you're an immigrant," she said. "No, my great-grandparents were immigrants." She corrected herself. "You're an All-American." Still, some in Virginia, including the former western part, now a different state, think it important that one's family has lived in-state more than two hundred years. This Ms. Smith and I  had a nice chat. She is about my age, and remembers the Loving case well, about the interracial couple who were arrested for just that. Peggy knew the arresting officer. She had a brochure about the case. She also told me that schools in the county were segregated until 1970, but that was all the government. She was raised on a farm, she told me, and blacks and whites mixed freely in private.

So I chased around narrow country roads looking for historic places, many of them plantation and manor houses, down long driveways behind trees and gates and "No Trespassing" signs. Peggy had told me that the county's plan was to stay rural, except along I-95, away from the two small towns. The Washington and Richmond suburbs are fast approaching, and there is some attempt to control growth.

By lunch time I was in Bowling Green, a town about three blocks long and wide. I recognized the courthouse from the "Loving" movie, and there were many stately old homes on the few streets. I found a small brick shopping center with a chain drug store and an Italian restaurant. I treated myself to a chicken parmesan sub, fried (sinful!) and "unsweet" iced tea. The accents at neighboring tables were thicker than Peggy's. Someone was talking about neighboring King George County (Joe-urge). I spent most of an hour wandering around the town. There is a map of the town during the Civil War at the courthouse, mounted on a brick stand, with a caption in bold letters saying "Union Occupation of Bowling Green 1864." I couldn't help thinking "American Soldiers Quelling The Illegal Rebellion in Bowling Green." In front of the courthouse is a statue of a Confederate soldier. U.S. 1 is "Jefferson Davis Highway." I don't know how much people who live here notice these things. Since I also travel in Pennsylvania and Ohio, I see how different Virginia is. A house in Port Royal had a flag emblazoned with "Sic Semper Tyrannus," what John Wilkes Booth said after he shot Lincoln. Booth fled to Caroline County, and was shot running from the barn where he was hiding, near Bowling Green, after troops set it on fire.

I ended up in Port Royal, where Joe and I stopped for lunch on our way from my sister in Maryland to our friends in Virginia Beach two years ago, July 4 weekend. This is a small, pretty town on the Rappahannock, once a major port for tobacco, bypassed by the railroad and now quiet. I got back to my room by 4:30, slept for an hour and headed out to Golden Corral in one of the truck stops. Not everyone there was fat, the staff was friendly, and while I stuck to healthier food (salad, baked fish, spaghetti with marinara sauce, fruit, and, uh, chocolate pudding) I ate too much of everything. By 7 PM. it was 72 and sunny, the nicest it had been all day. I drove up U.S. 1 to Ladysmith, the most suburban part of the county, with a supermarket and some "real" restaurants off I-95. I bought marginally better food at the market for breakfast tomorrow.

I missed a political meeting yesterday, and I'll miss a dinner I was encouraged to attend tomorrow night, but as Joe says frequently "I am unrepentant." We'll see if I can get out next month. My term on Morgantown's City Council doesn't officially start until July 5.

The Grove, 1780-1800, north of Hanover

Jericho School House, Ruther Glen, c. 1910, two-room school house for African-Americans

Green Falls, c. 1710, south of Bowling Green

wheat field south of Bowling Green

"Old Mansion" c. 1741, Bowling Green

Main St. Commercial District, Bowling Green

Auburn, c. 1843, N. Main St., Bowling Green

House in Bowling Green Historic District

Baptist Church, late 19th Century, Bowling Green

Stonewall Jackson Shrine, Guinea Station. This is the office for the plantation where Jackson died in 1863. The plantation house was demolished in the early 20th century

Looking east on the Rappahannock River from the pier at Port Royal

West on the Rappahannock at Port Royal. The bridge (under going repair) is from the 1930s and carries U.S. 301

Episcopal Church, 1830s. Port Royal

Riverview, 1845, Port Royal

Caroline County Courthouse, Bowling Green, 1830, with the statue dedicated to Confederate soldiers

Braxton County, West Virginia

Joe asked me what I wanted for my birthday this year, and I said "Come to Braxton County with me." I thought his face was going to fall on the floor. Still, he was game enough to agree to go. We went Monday, two days before my birthday. It was below freezing in the morning, sunny once the sun came up after 7:30, and 62 in the afternoon.

Mapquest says it is 91 miles from Morgantown to Sutton, the county seat of Braxton County. That's close enough that I don't have to stay over. It's a straight shot down I-79 from Morgantown.

I've been through Braxton County before, heading south. US 19 cuts off of I-79 south of Sutton. I-79 goes to Charleston; US 19 goes to Beckley and is the fastest way to most of the Carolinas and Florida from Pittsburgh or Buffalo. Flatwoods is an interchange on I-79. There are gas stations, fast food places, motels and an outlet mall with a Tommy Hilfiger store, an Amish bulk foods store, a Book Warehouse, with last year's best sellers at seventy percent off, and a  Chinese buffet, where we lunched. Joe liked it better than I did. He was happy there was any kind of ethnic food in the boonies.

My goal was to hit each of the ten places listed on The National Register of Historic Places. I try to see a park, a synagogue, a college or university, a shopping mall. I guess the outlet mall in Flatwoods counts for the mall. We visited Burnsville Lake, a Corps of Engineers project with a dam, campgrounds, a historic park (with three National Register sites), and a boat launch. There is no synagogue or college in the county.

As in many places, we could see the importance of the rivers which include the Elk and Kanawha, eighty miles upriver from Charleston. Railroads cross the county. I didn't see any active train stations. There were skirmishes in the Civil War, as the Confederates tried to break the Union's water, rail and road supply lines. There were many Confederate sympathizers in the area, and indeed, we saw houses and trucks with Confederate flags one hundred fifty years after the end of the Civil War.

We had warm, dry, sunny weather at the same latitude as Santa Rosa in California. I was glad to have Joe with me. We left home at 9:30 and were home by 5:00.

Burnsville Bridge, 1893, over the Little Kanawha River, Burnsville, not in use

Burnsville Lake, near Napier, maintained by The US Army Corps of Engineers

Union Civil War Fortifications, Bulltown Historic Park, near Napier

Cunningham House, Bulltown Historic Park

portion of Weston-Gauley Bridge Turnpike, Bulltown Historic Park

Braxton County Courthouse, Sutton

Old Sutton High School, 1924, not sure what they are doing to it

Elk River,  Sutton

Haymond House, Sutton, 1894

Sutton Historic District

Main Street, Sutton

Gassaway Depot, 1914, originally on the Coal and Coke Railroad, later acquired by the B&O. Vacant since 1988.