Wild West Virginia

Western Maryland/West Virginia

In the interim between “outside Baltimore,” and “outside D.C.,” I drove west to see a friend in West Virginia. He's something of a badass, which I knew already, but really came to light when I met with him in his neck of the woods.

First of all, driving through Maryland, East to West or West to East is beautiful. As soon as you escape the suburban sprawl, things really get interesting. There were lots of rolling little mountains that I drove though on I-68. The ridgeley mountain gap is beautiful. There's a rest area at the peak on both sides of the highway, and they're connected by a pedestrian overpass. I stopped on my way back to take some pictures:

I was really impressed with Western Maryland; no one ever told me that shit was gonna be so scenic.

As the road went on, found myself going though a city call Cumberland. It was really neat because it's... pretty much abandoned. Still some things going on in this small city, but for the most part, it was the most of a ghost town I've ever experienced.

Keeping on west past Cumberland, you'll eventually reach Wild West Virginia. I, per my buddy's request, got off the first exit in WV, for Hazelton. I followed his directions, because my GPS was not aware that this place even existed. As far as it was concerned, I was driving around in the woods.

I eventually roll up to my friend Cleve feeding deer bits of Apple by hand. Kind of sweet, right? Here's what's awesome, these Deer are ALWAYS around Cleve's house (because he feeds them and you can do that legally in WV). There were like 10 deer that frequent his driveway. Cleve also leaves out cornmeal for them. They just come right up and hang out. So cool.

So, I was totally impressed from the start, but had high hopes. Cleve has always talked about how sweet his living situation is and my expectations were exceeded. He lives in a house he and his Dad built a few years ago. Cleve lives there and commutes to school from there. He's a naturalist, and thus knows everything about every little living thing on his 14 acre plot. He did not cease to explain most of them to me, as he said “there's literally nothing else to do out here. It's awesome.”

He went to class and I did laundry for the first time on the trip (for free, score). I went outside to play guitar for a bit and realized that I was playing an acoustic set for about 5 deer. They seemed pretty into it. One of them darted off in the middle of it and scared the shit out of me. I would have filmed this, but the sun had already set.

When Cleve returned, he cooked some amazing Italian food that cost him like $0 to buy because the Meninite food store in town is so cheap. Canned tomato sauce runs him like 30¢. We drank a Flying Dog sampler, which are bountiful in those parts. Flying dog opened a second brewery in Frederick, MD (not far from WV). Once drunk, Cleve decided to show me how he summons owls to his property in the dead of night. I guess for some company? I don't know, totally badass though. Had a great time hanging out in nowheresville, WV

I then left WV, headed to hang in MD for a little longer (which I included in the last post), then headed down to VA to pick up Nick.

...just continuing this flood of posts here. I've got most of Viriginia written out. Need to edit and add a shred vid. Need to add pics. Then I'll have a real short NC post that I might just combine with SC, and a sizeable GA post. I'm in Atlanta now, probably for another night, then I'm off to Nashville, I think... Or is it Chattanooga first? Who knows, certainly not me. See you out there somewhere.

-Skwar