Mountain driving

After a lovely visit with some good friends of mine in Greenville, South Carolina, I finally began my journey to West Virginia on May 19.  My car was busting at the seems with all of my belongings.  Seriously, not a spare inch of space was available for anything extra.  The drive was smooth: no problems, no traffic, no weather.  I wanted to make a detour through Blackburg, VA to see Virginia Tech.  It wasn't far off my course and I was interested in finding the building where the shootings took place on April 17, 2007.  The campus was beautiful: all the buildings are made of stone and look like Scottish castles, the horizon is full of mountains on all sides.  I found Norris Hall only to find that there was no memorial outside.  One man happily invited me inside to take a look around, but I was too freaked out (not by him, but by the building itself), so I went back to my car.  My handy GPS (which had gotten me off track twice already) gave me some directions that claimed were faster, or rather more direct.  Stupid me didn't put it together that more direct in the mountains is not in fact faster.  My GPS took me to the top of a mountain when the road decided to stop being paved and I was on gravel.  Gravel alone would have been fine, but then the houses decided to stop being built.  Then a creek decided to travel back and forth across the road and create canyons that my poor weighed down Camry had to ford.  Needless to say, I thought I was gonna die.  One pop of a tire and I would be stranded for a loooong time.  No cell service, no doors to knock on, no passing cars.  My hands were so tight on that steering wheel that they are sore today and my teeth were clenched so hard that I'm gonna have to get dentures soon.  Moral of the story: don't trust your GPS.  Although I did have some great views and I found some really cool mountain towns and I know where some awesome trails are.  So I finally find pavement again and I get to West Virginia!  then back into Virginia.  then West Virginia!  then back into Virginia.  Then finally permanently back into West Virginia!  I get into Pocahontas County (that's correct.  I live in Pocahontas County) and finally a sign for Hillsboro!  To my surprise, there is a gas station ($4.09/gallon) and some other interesting looking establishments.  I stop by the museum to meet Tim, the director, and he gives me a quick tour.  The house is amazing and has a lot of the original furniture, which makes it even cooler.  Then I attempt to find my new home (for now).  Pause story.  One of the board members at the museum, Sue, offered free housing to the summer intern.  She and her husband own a house on 11 acres in Hillsboro and there is also a trailer on the property that is usually rented out, but as luck would have it, it was available.  Unfortunately, the previous tenants were smokers and the carpet stinks and  Sue wanted it replaced before I arrived.  Well things work a little differently in the mountains, kind of like how they work down south: everything is a little slower, things will get done, but you're never sure when or what kind of quality.  Anyways, the carpet was ordered, then went missing and is now late.  So I can't move into the trailer until Saturday...at the earliest.  So I'm staying in Sue's house until the carpet is finished.  Luckily for me, Sue and her husband Jay are super nice and friendly and definitely my kinda people.  I immediately felt comfortable with them; they even reminded me of my aunt and uncle in Ohio.  They took me out to dinner to the only restaurant in town: Pretty Penny Cafe.  A country band (Girls, Guns, & Glory) from Boston (weird right?) happened to be playing and they weren't all that bad.  I got to unload some of my stuff into the trailer's kitchen, so that I didn't have to keep hauling around four tons of my stuff in my car.  Got to watch the season finale of The Office (Jim is totally gonna be manager) and then off to bed.  I work up this morning ready to get to the museum for my first day when Tim called Sue's phone (my phone doesn't have service in the entire state so far) to tell me that he had a meeting and I didn't have to go to work til 12.  And that's where I'm at right now.  With a couple extra hours on my hands I thought I'd try out the new blog thing.  I realize I rambled on and on about nothing in particular and I didn't even have any witty comments, and for that I apologize.  I promise to be better next time.  I've already heard that county meetings are a riot, so I'm assuming that it's like Stars Hollow's meetings on Gilmore Girls.  So I definitely plan on attending a couple.  Once I get unpacked in the trailer and figure out where all my stuff is, I'll upload some pictures.

Norris Hall, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA

This is my place of work. 

This is the view from the parking lot.  That's right.  Be jealous.

My drive to work everyday looks like this.