Wednesday, June 10th

Midwest

The drawback of the downtown hotel was that it didn’t include breakfast. Not so much for the extra expenses but because I caved and, at a nearby diner, went all out: eggs and bacon and fries and waffles. Back at the hotel, I needed to rest.

I left town entirely too late and turned west and into a busy mountain valley. Morgantown’s college sports team wasn’t called the Mountaineers for nothing. Indeed, the road left the valley, climbed up a mountain only to descend again into the next lively valley.

Stuck in a bit of a queue, I decided to finally quench my curiosity and stopped at a Dollar General in Blacksville. But I was disappointed: this was just an ordinary general store, selling food and household supplies of all kinds. It wasn’t even that every item cost a dollar, as I had quietly hoped.

Blacksville itself turned out to be a serious town with banks and stores and lots of other buildings. It climaxed after a river crossing with the high school of special ugliness but with a large, green football field.

Beyond, the road resumed its crossing from valley to valley. It ran along a river for a while, lined by the customary series of houses, then turned a corner and, with a varying degree of bends and turns, climbed atop a mountain ridge, crossed over and rushed down again to find another river and line of houses. It repeated this process four or five times before finally finding a suitable valley to stay in.

There had been quite a few road work sites in West Virginia already, more so than in all other states so far combined, but now I turned up at one that had both a traffic light and a flag man. The latter came over and informed me that this may take a while. A ditch had been dug all the way across the road. Normally half it was covered by a large metal plate to allow traffic to at least trickle, but currently it was opened fully and a workers head peeking out every once in a while.

I didn’t have any reason to complain, though. I was first in line, guaranteeing progress unhindered by American fear of corners beyond. Thus I quickly arrived at the next town, New Martinsville. It sat by the shores of yet another big river which, in an emerging pattern, served as a state line, too. This was the Ohio River and beyond was the final new state of my journey: Ohio.

Just north of New Martinsville was the Korean War Veterans Memorial Bridge, once either white or light blue but now mostly just rust brown. It presented a view over the surprisingly wide river. It still had a few hundred miles to go before meeting the Mississippi near Paducah. No wonder it was the larger of the two at that point.

Ohio had its own road through the river valley and its own village at the bridge, too: Hannibal. There a road turned left, out of the valley and into the mountains. A sign warned that a winding roadway and steep turns were to follow. That sounded promising, indeed. More so, someone had drawn a red heart onto the road’s highway shield.

The steep turns stared right away. Hannibal had grown along these curves up the valley side. Further up, a great view over the wide Ohio valley was visible for split seconds, before another hairpin brought nothing but trees. Up top, the road picked a mountain ridge and stuck to it. Or it almost did, as the actual ridge was already taken by houses and farms.

And so it wound along through green fields and quaint farms. A short intermission for a dive down a river valley, deserted but for trees and bushes was followed by quick recovery up to the next ridge and farm land. This may have been a slow drive, but it was absolutely fantastic, the heart more than justified. This was the sort of landscape where you cannot resist to wave at other drivers. In between waves and smiles, I pondered the question whether I was just exceptionally good at finding these gems or whether there just was so many everywhere. Reason suggested the latter, yet vanity disagreed.

But, as all good things must come to end, I eventually returned to the main road west. This one, too, wound along a mountain ridge, but it did so with a wider road and less gusto. It came to Woodsfield with a busy main street of proud buldings, some even five storeys tall. Proudest of all was the court house with its green copper roof.

Lewisville next before the road started to slowly climb down. It wasn’t in any hurry though and took nearly twenty miles before arriving at some sort of bottom and a motorway. Hills followed after with trees and farms: EMSL, then a sudden wilderness with lots of unannounced tight corners, then a little flatter but with farming again.

After crossing another river in some town that forgot to announce its name—or maybe the fabulously boring drive made my mind wander—the road climb up for another section of mountain ridge running, a scheme they seemed to love dearly around here. After more than enough turns for the day, the road dumped me unceremoniously onto a T intersection with no explanation whatsoever. Once more, I pick the right option. This is happening entirely too often on this trip, making me fear the big, fatal mistake that surely was to come.

Murray City, a few surprise turns and out again, and New Straitsville, home to an annual Moonshine Festival. The temperature that had started at around seventy this morning, slowly crept over the ninety mark. The valley became busy and one village followed another. Suddenly it widened dramatically and a factory appeared. This was Logan, a hot and dusty city.

Once more I tried to figure out what made many of these towns so dodgy looking. Was it the crumbling pavement? The sidewalks in particular were cracked badly. Or was it the worn out stones and sidings of the buildings? Most likely, it was a combination of all of them, leaving a somewhat uncared for impression to the eye tuned to German or, worse yet, Swiss villages.

I followed the motorway for two exits before returning onto country roads. The road seemed to lead into slightly touristy area. A blue sign announced impending tourist activities, such as a zip line course. Something called the Old Man’s Cave wasn’t far away, either.

Quite contrary, though, suddenly the landscape was very flat. Some tame hills returned soon, just enough so I couldn’t overtake the slow truck I had wound up behind. A road sign suggested ‘Outdoor Drama.’ Indeed, the map revealed the full name to be ‘Sugarloaf Mountain Tecumseh Outdoor Drawm,’ still leaving open the exact nature of the sight.

More and more factories appeared. There was the Rifle Machine Works, red and blue logo on a white building, and the much larger Kenworth plant surrounded by millions of parked trucks. This was the outskirts of Chillicothe which I had chosen as today’s overnight destination.

I found a hotel but was informed that it was fully booked. In fact all but two motels were full. There probably was a reason why those two weren’t and after short contemplation I returned to the hotel desk inquiring into nearby alternatives. Washington Court House was suggested, which turned out to be a town about half an hour away along the motorway. I quickly booked a room there.

The motorway turned out to be mostly empty, running through a now properly flat landscape. It supported large scale farming, interestingly without any irrigation. The sky was flat too, impressed blue with a few white smudges. The road was ruler straight. It was good to be back in the Midwest.

Quickly I arrived in Washington Court House, or Washington CH as it was confusingly abbreviated on all the road signs, and started looking for the hotel. After crossing town three times, it did indeed feature a giant Roman temple courthouse, I still couldn’t find it anywhere. There was a hotel of another chain, so I went there, assuming some sort of mix-up. But no, I hadn’t booked there either. There was, however, the right chain in Jeffersonville, another ten motorway minutes. It was, apparently, listed under Washington Court House both in the yellow pages and the company directory. I knew I should have asked for directions when booking the room.