Bluefield, West Virginia
I decided to take a drive to Bluefield, WV, yesterday. I was there just a few months ago but stopped only briefly due to wanting to visit some other areas the same day. I'd promised myself I'd return and so I did. Bluefield is about 150 miles southeast of my home and right on the WV/VA border. As a matter of fact, there's a Bluefield, VA, right across the border. The 'WV Bluefield' has a population of about 10,000 people and its economy was/is dependent on the coal industry (of course). The first thing I noticed about the town was, oddly enough, how many vacant parking spaces there were. It has to be the friendliest town for parking that I've ever visited! Every street and every business had more spaces than could ever possibly be used on the busiest of days. I know that's a strange thing to notice but it was so obvious everywhere I walked. The next feature I observed was the early, twentieth-century architecture of small-...