West Virginia, part 3

Friday morning (see http://community.webshots.com/user/jamisonab for pics that go along with this blog)

I wake up at 9:30, Larissa and her mom and aunt went walking downtown. Not so fast! Don’t think of a downtown in your city. Think Mayberry. Very cool buildings, old architecture style down in Oakland Maryland. I go downstairs for breakfast. Nothing is cooked, but Larissas grandma has some left over sausage (best in the world, don’t know why) and I eat it up. This woman seems like an Italian mother the way she wants to feed you. The funniest thing is that she almost gets insulted if you don’t want food. “You want some toast with that?” “Nah, I’m good.” “Let me cook you an egg” “No thanks.” “Well fine, just see if I try and offer you anymore food…”. They are telling us to be careful if we go walking down in the woods today. Lots of black bears they say.

So that afternoon, Larissa and I decide to go driving to get some good photographs. She suggests we head to “Swallows Falls” which is surrounded by a national forest (I forget which one) but it isn’t but a few minutes from where we are staying. Deciding that we didn’t want to pay 3 bucks per out of state person to park, we drove about 100 yards down the road and parked in a gravel lot along with 3 or 4 other cars and took about a miles hike down a trail across the street. It followed this river and we got better views of the falls that we would have had we paid to park (see photos).

We return to hear a funny tale. Larissas dad was at the dariy queen down the street (the meca of terra alta, wv… not kidding) and said that a helicopter landed in the parking lot, a man got out (while the copter was still running), went into the Dairy Queen, and emerged 3 minutes later with 3 ice cream cones. He gave the cones to his other two passengers and had one for himself. Then the helicopter took off… odd.

We had a sort of “Pre-reunion” this evening. We went out to my mother-in-laws sisters land and ate food and stuff. I tell ya, growing up in the south spoils you as far as food goes. Even though I was in West Virginia (Hardly yankee country) the food was still scarse and in small portions. It is traditionally a poor state, so maybe it comes form that. A damper was put on the dinner for me though. Although the scenery was nice and I got to see a nice sunset and all the children were fun to watch play, one of Larissas cousins put me in a foul mood. He is a really nice guy, and a family man. But someone mentioned to him that he is going gray on his hair, which he is, big time. He is only 30. Well, he took the comment in stride, but for some reason, I guess he thought he would toss the ball to me and make balding jokes. This is a pretty sophisticated guy. I would have probably under normal circumstances laughed it off, patted him on the back and had a good ole time. But then Larissa’s OTHER cousin got into the act. This guy AINT a class act, and is as red neck as they come in west Virginia/Maryland. He then thinks it is time for him to join in and starts making more plugs and toupee jokes. Then the other cousin says “Ya know, they sale stuff at the store, called Rogaine.” And of course this is followed with laughs. So I punched him in the mouth. Kidding. I distanced myself a bit from the crowd for the rest of the, what seemed like, long night. I have no idea why, but I can only take so many laughs at my expense. My wife can do it till she dies, I don’t care. My café buddies can do it forever, please do. But when a cousin from my wifes side of the family does, no thanks. Maybe I fear getting old. I am not sure. But I cant take balding jokes from non-friends and non-family.

The hurricane is on its way. I called Montgomery to find out about roads closing. Tomorrow the interstate going south bound will be closed from Mobile, AL to Montgomery, AL. Hopefully that’s where it will stop. I can take backroads from Birmingham, but don’t want to. At least very few people will be heading south tomorrow! (UPDATE, we made it home safe)
FYI, Larissa's grandma gave her an iron skillet that is pretty nice… I think Larissa mentioned that she liked it…

Drive home was uneventful. We drove 9 hours straight and arrive in chattanooga at midnight and woke up the next morning to go to church with my mom and dad. Then drove home, hit some bad rain, but nothing I couldn't handle!