3 weeks in West Virginia

Work called and i left for West Virginia, for a 3 week trip, on December 27th. So for the 2nd year in a row i was working out of town on New Years. Luckily during the time i was down there, West Virginia was having unseasonably cold weather, with lots of snow. And i found out that down there when it snows 3" school is usually canceled. But as always it was lots of walking, around 100 miles, and during that time i saw lots of cool stuff. I really enjoyed the mountain views, they were everywhere and looked great covered in snow.

Here's what i looked like most days, trying to stay warm.
I also learned that there are TONS of deer in that state. In fact West Virginia has led the US in number of car/deer accidents; Michigan is number 2. They were everywhere and unlike Michigan where they could walk around in farm fields, it was either stand in the road or on the side of the mountain.

Not lots of farms or cattle but there was the occasional cow with an itchy nose.

Measuring out the line
After a couple of weeks in the Super 8, my clothes pile did get a bit messy.

A cold early morning

Apparently where people in this town paid for water. No it was not a double wide.

Instead of burying pipes like gas lines they sometimes just laid them on the ground. Here's their hi-tech solution to crossing a river. Screwing a wire to 2 trees.

Scary land owner that definitely had lots of guns. And had no problems telling the DNR how things were gonna work.

The coolest guy in West Virginia.

And of course he lived on...

Incase you can't read it, the hand painted sign says "Neurosurgical Assoc" on "Knawl Creek Rd" I'm not joking this place was out in the middle of nowhere. If you hadn't already guessed, Knawl Creek road isn't a major highway. It isn't even paved, its gravel. I didn't want to even think about what kind of equipment they used to use in their redneck neurosurgery that got performed in that place before it collapsed.

"Honey my central nervous system's still hurtin' me" "Well time to go down to that neuro-something-or-other down on Knawl Creek"

Typical road names were either "lick", "hole" or "hallow" (pronounced "haller") It took me about 4 months to realize what people were talking about when giving directions and said "ya ya'll want to turn left down at the second haller off a Mud Lick road"

This was a burned down house. But after offering a big reward like that i'm thinking any day now they'll have their suspect. You could have bought the house for around $400.

Fresh bear tracks crossing the road we were walking. We guessed they couldn't have been more then 3 or 4 hours old since it just snowed that morning. That's my boot print next to it, just to give a sense of their size.

Straightforward sign