West Virginia 2006: Fallingwater, Hot Dogs, Abandoned Coal Towns, Spacehobbit, and a Beautiful Home
Only a week after returning from Ecuador, I hopped on a plane to Wild and Wonderful West Virginia with Lisa. This trip was my third trip to West Virginia (check out photos of the 2001 and 2003 trips to the WV!).
We first visited our friend Mary Wade in the northern part of the WV. She took us to Valley Falls and other sites, but also up north to Pennsylvania to see the exquisite Fallingwater house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Mary Wade is a journalist, and wrote a fun and insightful article that ran in the Sept. 12, 2006 edition of the Times West Virginian, discussing this very trip to West Virginia and how viewing WV through other's eyes is interesting.
Next, we made our way back to the WV to visit Lisa's parents in Charleston, going with her family to the amazing Hillbilly Hot Dogs in Huntington and appreciating the beauty of the house in Charleston.
On our last day in West Virginia, we drove to Beckley to visit the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine to experience coal mining at the turn of the century, and explored the mysterious abandoned coal town of Stotesbury. If that weren't enough for our last day, we also visited our friend Rusty and recorded music for the infamous Spacehobbit, a West Coast/East Coast recording collaboration. Really fun trip!!
The food...chili dogs with 'slaw, homemade biscuits and gravy expertly made by Lisa's father, potato salad, beef tips and noodles...good eatin', sheer debauchery.
Follow the coal cars...
