not quite the charleston i was expecting

What an odd trip – odd in a good way, not like the last Disaster Trip, but odd nevertheless. Not at all what I was expecting from my Labor Day Long Weekend trip. And here I am in our relatively new Panera, which has wireless, quite excited to find they also have ten gazillion outlets and they aren’t busy today. I was all set to load up my photos, because you REALLY need photos to go with this entry and I sure can’t do that at home with dial up. Trust me, you need visuals to appreciate this trip. But, and I can’t figure this out at ALL, my pictures aren’t showing up on Flickr. I’ve loaded them up and I just get Xs. I also get Xs for everyone else’s pictures, and when I switch browsers, I STILL get Xs. I am not sure what is going on, and if it’s me or Panera or Flickr, but whatever it is, it sadly means no pictures for this entry. Drat.

ANYHOW, we were planning to leave bright and early Saturday morning. For Charleston. Charleston South Carolina. The one with beaches and the historic district. So, at 10 or so Friday night, I decide to look at the weather forecast for Charleston. Baker B and I had both checked the weather forecast for Charleston several days ago, and several days ago the forecast was for scattered showers. However, by Friday night the forecast was for thunderstorms Saturday, thunderstorms Sunday, a whole lot of rain, more rain Monday, and possibly clear skies by Tuesday. When we would be leaving. Given our last experience with heavy rain in Charleston, we really really really didn’t want to be total idiots and head right back there into the heavy rain. Not only does it put a (ha ha!) damper on a vacation, it also tends to flood in Charleston. And neither on of us wants to have the engine replaced again.

So, at 10:00 Friday night, we had a change of plans. The entire NC/SC coast, plus pretty much everything south of us, was supposed to get scads of rain. North, though, looked very nice. West Virginia looked perfect. Which is kind of strange, since if it’s going to rain anywhere, it’s going to drown West Virginia.

Well, we haven’t been to Weird Wacky West Virgina in quite some time, so it sounded like that might be the place to go. I cancelled our Charleston SC reservations, and we headed for….

Charleston West Virginia.

We really didn’t do that just because it would be funny, though. Really! We’d never been to Charleston West Virginia, and it’s a pretty good sized town, and, well, this just seemed like the time to do it. And it was funny – changing our minds at the very last minute and heading the complete opposite direction to a town with the exact same name. Which, even odder, is about the same distance as our Charleston.

So, that’s what we did. Headed north instead of south, drove around Coal County, experienced anew what a bizarre and often creepy place West Virginia is. We drove around till about 6. We went to Bramwell, which is full of houses built by millionaires,  and to Pocohontas which is full of houses and big buildings that have fallen apart and are sitting there in ruins all over the place, and apparently have been sitting there like that for forty years or so, and we have no idea what happened there – apparently just decay and the lack of destruction crews, I guess. And then we went to Annawalt and Jenkinjones, which I actually wrote about  five years ago, and I’d link it here, but in keeping with the peculiar things going on with me/my computer/ whatever right now, I can’t find the Search This DIary button. Which I used last night so I KNOW it’s around here somewhere. I’ll find it later. Oh, duh, there it is … I have no idea why I couldn’t see that. Except the sun is shining in on my computer and I’m too lazy to move out of the glare. Anyhow, that’s our last Annawalt and Jenkinjones experience. Sadly, with the photo links gone. I let my Picturetrail account expire and didn’t get them moved. After going through Jenkinjones again we were reminded why we said years ago that we’d never go back there. You really have to see it – I’ll get the new pictures up before I even attempt to describe Jenkinjones.

Then we went to Bluefield, ate at Macadoos which is one of Baker B’s Comfort Zone Eateries so we actually had eaten in this one many times before and knew exactly where it was, and I called up to Charleston to see if we could get a motel. We could, at the Knights Inn, which was kind of a low-end motel and certainly didn’t offer wireless, but it was clean. And about $50 less that what we would have been paying in our Charleston. We got there after dark but drove downtown anyhow, and discovered the WVA Charleston is enormous, full of great big buildings and very sprawling –  and there was even a carnival going on by the river, so we were wandering around that until 11. Which was fun.

Next day we drove around some more, went to Logan which also has to have pictures before I can describe it, and is another place we’d already said we’d never go back to. But we did. And we just drove around,  looking at the creepy towns and the coal fields. And although we kept thinking we’d stay somewhere Sunday night too, we ended up heading back to Boone and getting home about midnight. Because we’re still planning a trip to our Charleston around the end of the month if I can get another Monday off.

 And now I need to get out of here and go to the store and get home. Hopefully tomorrow I can manage some photos. And give a better rendering of our strange trip.

But before I go, I just HAVE to note ….

Okay, I don’t care the first thing about football, I never keep up with our football team, and this kind of thing generally goes right over my head – but we’re all over the national news! Even I’m kind of excited about it. There was a big spread in USA Today, complete with a map of NC and arrow pointing to Boone, and apparently ASU beating Michigan is the biggest upset in sports history. Not just college football, but ALL sports. So we’re, like, famous now! At least for a few days. Apparently it was on the front page of the NY Times. Even better, it apparently was a close game and not just a fluke.

SO, there you go – Boone is now on the map, and for once it’s not just that we’re on the Weather Channel because we got 10 feet of snow.