Blogs from West Virginia, United States, North America - page 9

One of the fun parts of roadtripping is collecting people…well, not quite actually collecting them but collecting vignettes of the folks you meet on the road. I guess I have to admit to a certain amount of voyeurism as we travel as I do enjoy people watching and, frankly, listening in on conversations from time to time. Yesterday morning at the Gettysburg Visitor’s Center there were masses of high school students on the obligatory field trip, filling out their requisite class survey forms while leaning on each other’s backs, trying to be uber-cool with each other, and just generally being teenagers. Some comments overhead… “I didn’t know Jefferson Davis was President of the US... Dummy, it means President of the Confederacy.” “Eew, can you imagine being operated on with that? Did they have drugs back then?”...while ... read more

Waiting to find out if the Iceland Volcano will prevent us from traveling. So far Delta has no cancelled flights to Rome because of the vlocanic ash, HOWEVER, we are supposed to fly from Rome to Amsterdam the first week of May. Most flights to Amsterdam are cancelled so we don't know what we are doing. The tour company says the tour is a go.....we will see!... read more

A country boy in America is nothing without a pick-up, everyone drives a pick-up here! We grabbed a pizza on the way and then on we go. No tolls here any more, piuh! The Nüvi said at our tempo we could make it to N'Orleans by 3 am. We still had no idea where and when we were going to stop or if we'd find a room and what it'd be like. Living out of two suitcases and a small car is very relaxing actually. Always on the road, getting up early, no time to unpack. You need to be very organized and very tolerant. There is no way you could do this with someone who in the slightest gets on your nerves. There's hardly any me-time. The Americans just laugh at our car of course, ... read more

November 15, 2009 “Almost heaven, West Virginia”…after leaving our hotel this morning, we started on our search for Donna’s West Virginia roots! We drove through the western part of the state and arrived in Welch at about noon. This is where Donna was born. After getting herself oriented, Donna directed us to her aunt’s home up a road in an area called “Junior Pokey”, where cousin Jean and her son Randy still live. Of course they weren’t expecting us. When we drove up into the driveway, a man standing there came over to the car…Donna started to tell him who she was, she hadn’t been back in 25 years, but he immediately said in his West Virginia twang “Oh I know who you are; I recognized you right away”!! It was her second cousin Randy, who ... read more

5 Days On the Road It was going to be an easy 5 days on the road picking up a few National Park Stamps that we didn’t already have in our portfolio. Of course, nothing is ever as easy as it sounds. The plan was quite simple…..head out of Alabama via interstate and then transition to backroads only. Departing Chattanooga that part of the plan quickly disintegrated as we ran into rain, gentle at first but slowly transitioning into monsoon like proportions. Seeing some of the backroads we had planned in Tennessee in the rain wasn’t going to be a good idea, so we continued on the big road into Knoxville. A quick stop at the Electrical Connection to solve a XM radio issue was made before heading to the first park on the list - ... read more