West Virginia, part 2

We wake up Thursday morning (July 7th) to the news of the explosions in London. During the G8 peace summit no less. So we were pretty glued to the tv during breakfast and getting ready to head out. Of course, the storm had crept up to us while we were sleeping and the trip north turned out to be pretty wet. I have bravely let Larissa drive the remaining 6 hours north. So here I sit in the passenger seat typing this. It isn’t that I don’t trust her as a driver. I mean, for as long as I have known her, this woman has driven in every sort of weather I can think of. She has driven in rain many times. But maybe it is the man in me that thinks I should br driving the car if we are both in a vehicle. I guess it is a control thing. I feel so helpless in the passenger seat, and I NEVER sleep on car rides, she can fall asleep in 5 minutes in the car, so it would seem that me driving would be good for both of us… oh well. At least I get to watch Katz and Seinfeld DVDs while she drives… (UPDATE! Larissa gave up after about 40 minutes of driving, so I had to take over. I lovingly pestered her about this most of the trip)

The drive from east Tennessee to West Virginia is just beautiful. No digital camera memory card is big enough to hold all the images we came across, I tried to take as many pics as I could, but had to turn the quality down to fit more pics on the camera... most ended up just looking blurry.

One pic Ill post soon is over the worlds longest (literally) arched bridge. Take a look at the next quarter you get. If it is a state quarter, see if it is West Virginia. If it is, look on the back, that’s the bridge we cross. The view is great from the little over look you can drive to. Plus, every summer, the city closes one lane on this bridge to let bungie jumpers jump off. You may have seen this on TV.

We arrive at a place called the “Tamarack” in Beckley, West Virginia. The best way to describe this is a craft store, only the size of a small mall. It is in really great shape and it a very popular exit for travelers. It is one of those large exits where they over charge you for food and gas. Anyway, people buy booths, and apparently they are loyal sellers because for the past 5 years that we have been going up there, the same booths are there. And they really aren’t booths; they are huge ‘section’ of this ‘mall’ dedicated to a particular craft. I'm led to believe that everything there is handmade by the resident artists and crafts-people. There are 6 studios in which most of the products there are made. There is a resident textilist, wood carver, jewelry maker blacksmith, pottery dude, glass blower and a few other folks. Please don’t think this is some back-woods, hillbilly flea market, it is very clean, very indoor, and very high class. There is also sold many books and music dedicated to the area, which are very cool, and are about the only things we have bought form there, but to look is awesome. Rachel Sipper would be happy to know that the quilts there go for around $2,000. We saw a small quilted square about 4 by 4 feet… oh, just $160. Nothing Rachel or my wife couldn’t make in a few days. Of course, people weren’t clamoring to pull them off the shelves to buy either. We also saw some tiny purses that Rachel has made, made out of small beads… ranging from $80 to $220. The wood work was amazingly perfect and you just HAD to hold these wood carvings to make sure they were real. They were just too good. A nice wood bowl salad went for $500. Oh, there was also a resident instrument maker. It looked like all she made were Dulcimers though, all looked very nice though.
They had a small art gallery in there, presenting local artists’ work too. All for sale, but set up like a museum.

We left about an hour later, it was a nice break. And we got lunch and gas about 30 minutes down the road (I can get almost 450 miles on one tank of gas in our Honda, it is great, this is also where I took over driving, tee hee).

3:30 Eastern Time, late afternoon, and after many winding mountain roads, we arrive at Larissas grandparents home. Lasagna was waiting on us. I take a nap before we eat dinner (wish is a rare feat in and of itself). A pretty relaxed, non-rushed trip. But, it rained the entire trip… Oh, and just like every visit up to Larissas dad’s parents house, her granddad had to mention “Evans Curve”. One year, heck, must have been 3 or 4 years ago, we visited up here. It snowed (like it always does) the day we left. So, to be safe, Larissas dad and granddad followed behind us in another car. We came to this curve called “evans curve”. My back wheels slipped a bit, maybe slidding about 1 or 2 feet. I recovered and didn’t think anything about it.

Ever since then, every time I see this WWII vet, he will say “Did you have any trouble on Evans Curve?” “No…”. Then looking off into the distance, as if remembering some war story, he inhales and says “Yeah, I remember when you started sliding that one time you came around Evans Curve…” and so on…. It is funny. He is pestering me about it, but I love it.

We then drive 10 more minutes down the road to Larissa's other grand parents home, in Oakland, Maryland. This lady is fun because she lets me cut up and make jokes with her. Only problem with this grandmother is the fact that she always loads me and Larissa down with stuff before we leave. I promise, if you so much as say “Wow, I like that vase.” It will be in your hands before you leave the house. She loves to give stuff away.Well, it works out well for me today. She sees me come in carrying my mandolin. About an hour later she asks me if I know anyone who can fix a fiddle. I say I do (Sips uncle I was thinking.) Well, her husbands brother (Larissas great Uncle Joe) played the fiddle, and he has since died, but she still had his 80 year old fiddle in her attic. Since she saw I played an instrument, and none of her other family members did, guess what? She plopped it in my lap! It is in need of repair, but it looks like a family heirloom has been passed on to me from Larissa side of the family!

I am going to setup a webshots account, to post all these pics...