Let’s Talk West Virginia
More specifically, the hill towns of West Virginia, like Quinwood
My first encounter with the hills of West Virginia was when I skipped out on the crappy WV turnpike and headed up the hills. To learn about the horrible turnpike, read here:
It was not long until I was at the entrance to the backcountry. Real small towns up there! Probably due to coal mining and lumber that there are any towns up there. Some places looked closed down as if the town’s main employer had closed.
In one of the town streets the truck in front of me pulled over to let me pass. There was a small shoulder, so he could. The truck, however, did not stop. I looked over, wondering why he did not slow down enough to stop. I noticed the shoulder about to come to an end and that turned into a ditch near someone’s driveway, so I hit the gas. The truck jerked the truck back onto the road sharply, just missing the ditch and coming about a foot from my rear bumper. If I did not notice the situation and responded at the time I did, it would have ended differently.
Shortly after, I drove under what looked like a closed conveyor belt that ran above the road and went up a hill about a quarter mile and connected to a building at the bottom. Could be for rock or coal or was for, maybe.
Along the 30 or so miles, there were many areas where large trucks could pull off, about every 5 minutes. Very interesting to see. It was awesome to see so much untouched forest and hills. It warms my heart. Which, I’m used to, seeing as I’m from Pennsylvania and lived up in the northwestern part with a lot of hills of untouched lands (aside from hunting).
I don’t know about hiking these WV areas, but this seems like a great place for hiking. Someone could probably find a lot of history around here. There were a lot of, what looked liked, abandoned camp areas or these were places that people lived. Made me thankful for what I have.
One area I drove past had three construction equipment (a bulldozer, excavator, and front loader) by a pond. They were partly rusty and partly yellow still. These were definitely there for show — men toys. Someone enjoyed construction back in the day.
Unsure what town I entered after that and I’m not sure if they were larger or smaller than Quinwood. They had one school bus in a town bus lot. It was newer, but just having experienced these small towns was really cool. Although I’m from rugged hills, too, and in the winter these hills are deadly, we had a lot of homes surrounding the areas! There were probably a hundred buses and vans roaming the hills to pick kids up.
Our schools were scattered and you could have lived next to someone on a hill that attended a different school. In the closest city, Warren, PA, the graduating class of the public school was like 500 and the graduated number in my class at my school in the same year was just me (1). The biggest difference was highways and long country roads that went in all directions, allowing us more variety of life, than these small towns.
Anyone not in a hurry traveling through the WV Turnpike I encourage you to drive up through.
