For most people from elsewhere, West Virginia is a bit of a blank spot. We know it exists, but we don't know what there is to do there. It's most famous export, coal, isn't exactly something that draws the tourists in droves. However, West Virginia is a wonderful place. It has some unique history, incredible…
It's a rainy day here in Charleston, West Virginia's capitol city and its largest. The gray skies and wet streets do nothing to lessen the glimmer of the golden dome of the state capitol building, and it shines, visible from all over the city. Across the plaza lies the West Virginia State Museum, containing in…
"Almost heaven, West Virginia. Blue Ridge Mountains. Shenandoah River. Life is old here, older than the trees. Younger than the mountains, blowing like a breeze." The song is beautiful, and one I can't stop singing as my father and I criss-cross this state. The mountains loom over us, wisps of clouds hovering around the tops,…
Tennessee Ernie Ford sang it in song. "You load sixteen tons, what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. St. Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go. I owe my soul to the company store." Beckley, West Virginia was a coal town, a company town, where miners worked to the…
This article was supposed to be posted later this month. However, the recent events in Pittsburgh have caused me to move up the timeline. Dillsboro, Indiana is a small town of about 1200 residents roughly an hour outside of Cincinnati. It is rural, conservative, and largely the stereotypical mid-American small town. It is not exactly…
In the mid-nineteenth century, a group of Mormon settlers crossed the Mojave Desert in California. They spotted a tree they had never seen before. Its outspread branches reminded them of a biblical story in which Joshua reaches his hands to the sky in prayer. And so they named it the Joshua tree. The Joshua tree…
Most people seem to think of cemeteries as macabre, as places of death, row after row of gravestones of people long since departed. And for most, the only reason to ever visit one is a funeral or the anniversary of the death of a loved one. However, for travelers, old cemeteries can be a treasure,…
In the desert of northern Arizona lies a forest, a forest so old it was ancient even when dinosaurs roamed the planet. Yes, this forest is more than 200 million years old, and it can still be seen. How, you ask? Petrified Forest National Park contains one of the largest collections of petrified wood in…
New Mexico. Land of Enchantment. Red rock cliffs, wide open deserts, UFO sightings, and more are all found here. But those aren't what draws me to the state. No, I am here in the tiny village of Hatch for the annual Hatch Chile Festival, the ultimate celebration of everyone's favorite spice-bearing ingredient. Arriving in Hatch,…
Most people seem to think of New Mexico as a splotch of land between the desert of Arizona and the flat plains of Texas, thereby having little to no appeal as it relates to beauty. While geographically they may be right - New Mexico is, in fact, between Arizona and Texas - this is a…