Verticality.

Next up was Wild and Wonderful West Virginia.

Where homes cling to the mountainside with driveways that fall away or climb from the road like amusement park rides and Route 50 (or maybe ALL roads in West Virginia) have more curves than a 36DD stripper.

Driving in West Virginia is spectacular and spectacularly exciting and exhausting. The views are magnificent but the roads are relentlessly curving left and right as they corkscrew up and down the seemingly endless West Virginia mountains. As soon as you get to the bottom (or top) of one elevation and catch your breath for the maybe short half mile stretch of straight road (West Virginia DOT hates straight- I’m convinced of this) you start up or down ANOTHER 9% grade.

But the views. Simply amazing.

So as I wrestled Turtle (I think I’ve decided to call my truck/camper Turtle)(because that’s what it looks like) up and down and back and forth, braking hard and accelerating harder, I marveled at the scenery.

I’m a flatlander. We don’t even have any little bitty hills in Virginia Beach or Knott’s Island, so to be winding up (or down) a mountain road with a cliff high above on one side and a cliff plunging away on the other was like driving in a 4th dimension.

Anyway.

I got to Davis and my brother-in-law showed me around and we spent some time together before he had to leave and then I had too much to drink while watching the very worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life. (Anybody But Him)

The next morning when I was brushing my teeth, I realized that my Gezellig, my cozy comfort level was gone, the places I knew and were familiar with were behind me now and that I had asked for this and I’d got it.

And I wavered.

But then, as I stared at my hungover self in the mirror, with toothpaste smeared in my beard and mustache, I said to myself- stop being such a pussy.

And got dressed and loaded up and went out to wrestle the mountains roads some more.