Beckley, WV, et. al.

I had a great drive yesterday!  On Friday, I received my E-Z Pass transponder which permits me to travel the WV toll roads for free after paying just one annual fee.  I wanted to take advantage of that immediately, so I drove southeast to Beckley, WV, yesterday morning.  Once I arrived there, though, I realized it was too cold to get out of the car and explore so I decided to continue on.  I then drove south to Bluefield which is right on the Virginia border.  After arriving there, I thought why not continue to Tazewell, VA, where several of my ancestors had lived.  In Tazewell, I decided to drive west to the town of Pikeville, KY, a town I'd already visited numerous times.  Finally, I headed back north through Eastern Kentucky and ended up back where I started in Barboursville, WV.  I was on the road for six hours total and essentially made a circle from WV to VA to KY and back. 

I did have a chance to take a few pictures despite the weather and have included two here.  The first one was taken in Bluefield and shows some impressive churches right in the middle of downtown.  The one on the right is a Presbyterian church and the white one is Lutheran.  An Episcopalian one was further down the street.  The second one shows a unique ad for a car dealership (with towing services) in Tazewell.  One question, would you buy a car from this dealer?   

A final thought, I also drove through Grundy, VA which is in the middle of nowhere in western Virginia.  The mountains were so high and steep that sunlight could barely penetrate down to the ground.  Anyway, even though Grundy is extremely isolated, their high school team has won a total of 15 state championships in wrestling and is often visited by recruiters from the best wrestling schools such as the University of Iowa.  I guess they funnel their best athletes into that sport.

Enjoy!