Crossing the Ohio was a milestone. I felt the Midwest taking shape, defined by the river, invisible to the eye but always present. Parkersburg was large and surprisingly industrial. Barges traveled the waterway. A huge lock lined the Eastern Shore. I felt I was moving into new territory. The road gradually flattened and the forests diminished as I drove West, still in the Alleghenies. Half way to Cincinnati I came upon the town of Chillicothe, former capital of Ohio back when it first became a state in 1803. The Europeans who settled there in the late 18thcentury chose a central location that had already been favored by the local Native American tribes from 500 BCE, over 2000 years ago. The mounds of the Hopewell and other peoples who lived there all that long ago, are a
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