K-Ville to Huntington, WV

My original thoughts for this TravelBlog was for me to write about our adventures. Lo and behold, the kids are enjoying having a laptop in the car and have started their own journals. Since they are writing about our entire trip, I'll let them continue and upload the trip from their point of view.

Today we started at 9:00a. So far we have had an awesome trip. We’ve seen the shell shape gas station, Mayberry, and a BUNCH of cool cars and Kermit's Hot Dogs.
We have a lot of pictures already. We have 20 pictures. There is a picture of a ford econoline, and one of April in front of the Welcome to Virginia sign.
We went to the Mystery hole oooooooooooh I’m a ghoooost! HAHAHAHA When you got down there the room was slanted. Did you know a golf ball can go up hill? Well it can, isn't that awesome. The guide person put a chair on the wall and sat on it and it didn’t fall off the wall. We stopped at Hillbilly Hot Dogs and of course had a hot dog. It was delicious! We got to eat in an air conditioned bus. It was sweet! We also signed somewhere around the place - Danny

Today we started out really early. And I mean, like, the neighbors weren’t even up yet. But, in their defense, it is a Saturday and we did leave at nine-ish. But anyways, we went to the first “attraction” on our list. A shell shaped gas station. And I don’t just mean a Shell gas station, I mean it was shaped like - and painted like - the shell in Shell’s logo. Dad had us “lounge” about the car, Danny pretending to pump gas into it. One problem: the gas cap was on the other side, the one Dad was taking the picture from. So we got back in our recently “filled” car and drove on. We passed this little hot-dog stand, Kermits Hot Dogs, or something like that. We had passed it on our way to the Shell, so Dad was like, If we hadn’t just eaten breakfast, we would eat lunch there. I am so lucky we had just eaten breakfast. We passed it on our way to the next attraction so, naturally, we had to get a picture. I don’t know why the picture was so necessary, we only live a stone throw’s away. Okay, maybe more like a few minutes, but if you had Superman’s or Schwarzenegger’s arm, it would be a stone’s throw. Gah, his last name is so hard to spell. So, on to our next attraction… Well, we have yet to arrive, but we did take a walk in Mayberry, another I-don’t-see-why-we-did-that. Mayberry is also a stone’s throw from home - if you’re Godzilla. So we wandered about Mayberry for a bit, got in the car and started driving. We’ve passed through two tunnels so far, which is cool if you like being surrounded by concrete underneath a mountain. It’s the under-the-mountain thing that’s the coolest though; you see the mountain’s brethren as you drive towards the tunnel, then, as you’re about to go through, the mountain looms above you, and then, you’re in the tunnel. We are going over an amazingly spectacular gorge; I just had to get a picture. I love heights, which is funny to me, Mom is afraid of them. But anyways, it’s about three twenty-some in the afternoon and Garmin’s predicted arrival time for the next attraction is three thirty-four. Hopefully Dad will drive faster than Garmin does and we’ll get there soon, I want to see what the next attraction is. Well, I’ll keep you posted, we’re going to be in the car for a long time, and that is why I’m glad man invented laptop.
The aforementioned “next attraction” is now the “past attraction” aka, the Mystery Hole. Upon arrival, the place was a dump. For serious. There was a Volkswagen Beetle stuck in the front, it was painted a charming blue, but dirtied to the extreme. The running board was falling off and it said Redneck Taxi on the side. The whole thing was painted like it was the seventies, which is when it was built. Once you walked around you had a lovely view of the bathroom, a dirty, scummy Port-A-John that was once white, but now more of a dirt color. You had to buy tickets to even get in to see the “Mystery Hole,” but I guess that’s understandable. When you walk in it’s just a big gift shop, everything from Bumper Stickers to Fly Swatters advertising the Mystery Hole. So, we paid, put the camera in the car (no cameras or phones, plzkthx), and went to wait outside. When we were in the shop, I was a little hesitant, not really wanting to go see it. But my parent prevailed and I went. I suppose it was alright, a little lame. The first room went in was so uninteresting that I can’t even remember what was in it. I think that was the room with the mannequins in it. We then went on to the next room, it had neon spray-paint decorating the walls in a very seventies fashion; that was the coolest room, I still had my glasses on, so the black light made them glow as bright as the spray-paint on the walls. We then went into the actual Mystery Hole, it was like Dorothy’s house after she landed in Oz, only dirtier. The whole room was built sideways, the “tour guide” showed us some “demonstrations,” he did the pendulum trick, then he made a golf ball travel “faster uphill than down!” Only, it was actually going slightly downhill because the room was sideways. But anyways, He showed us how water also travels uphill in the Mystery Hole. The man was so excited about the Mystery Hole that you just couldn’t help but feel sorry for the man. Delusional, all this time. That place had been open since the seventies, so the décor and the guides definitely reflected that. Poor, poor man. Now we’re headed to the next attraction, stay tuned for more details!
Welcome to the end of day one. We are currently in the Red Roof Inn, and I’ll have you know, this is a very uncomfortable chair. The last attraction of the day was a little Hot Dog stand in West Virginia. It was Hillbilly Hot Dogs, and the best hot dog I’ve ever not eaten. It was a cool place though, there was a little hut, I suppose you could call it, and two or three buses. One of the buses served as the eating area, complete with air conditioning. The lady that owned it was a cool lady, she lived in California, met her husband there, then moved to West Virginia with him. It was an interesting story, actually; but I suppose you don’t want to hear about that. After we ate, we drove about, looking for a not-so-seedy hotel to stay in. Finding them, but not being able to get a room. We eventually ended up back where we started, in the Red Roof Inn. We went to Wal-Mart, got some supplies: food, water, shelter… No, no, food, water, cooler, beer, yeah, that’s it. So, my brother is waiting pati—impatiently for me to finish. So, ttyl bbfls. XD - April

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