The temperature was just about 70 when I left Morgantown, WV around noontime. The sky was bright and there the illusion of a light green haze around the mountain treetops, a promise of even better days to come. The beginning of an Appalachian
Spring.
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| Mountain winter is brown and gray. Springtime is lush and green with blossoms everywhere. |
This time of year, you can see the forest floor and the shape of the ridges through the barren woods. Soon, if the promise is kept, leaves will cloak it all, giving cover to squirrels, deer, bear and the occasional fox. I love it.
I 79 cuts vertically through West Virginia, running from the Pennsylvania state line to the state capitol in Charleston. You pass places with names like Jane Lew, Flatwoods, Polemic Run and Muddlety...names that always make me wonder how they came to be. A better traveler would stop and ask. Today, I didn't have the time.
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| I 79 South on a bright new day. |
Stay tuned.
Ah... the weary traveler. Good you found a Marriott with a bar. (First things first.)
ReplyDeleteYour pictures and on-the-road comments are gonna be great.
On your way back you might want to take a long detour down to Titusville and go by KSC. They are talking of tearing down the VAB if they can't rent or lease it.
Meanwhile, the sage brush still roll on moaning winds through the old launch pads. Those primitive concrete bunkers with pre-digital gear still maintained and shown on hard-to-get tours shown by the corps of grey-headed colonels long retired but eager to talk.
What's happened down here is sad. History is being destroyed by the sea and dwindling budgets.
It is sad. Isn't the VAB on the Register of National Historic Places? If not, why not? That would be desecration. Besides, I'll bet it'd cost more to tear down and clear than what they would save..
ReplyDeleteThis trip is westerly..and it passes through a lot of my favorite country. Stay with it.