A Haunting Day, But No Ghosts

Well, remember how I said I expected this trip to be boring, and MQ said, ‘Nooooo.” It’s been a full day, so… I hope this in coherent. Up at the crack of dawn as always, we took our picture of “Killer Hat” (it was across from “Almost Paradise” in Paradise, PA) and headed across the farm land to down town Lancaster!

Downtown Lancaster was not what I anticipated. It is a real city, but it’s very dense. Row houses upon row businesses, interesting looking brick building right next to interesting looking building. It was claustrophobic. But some how Mike found a hippy coffee shop, that was open and had decent coffee.

Feeling ready for the adventure we headed South to Gettysburg.

Gettysburg. Apologies to those who loved the place, who like history, etc. I hated it. Okay. To be fair, I’m not big on history. I’m less big on Civil War history. We started at the Park, and I realized I really don’t like Civil War history, but okay… We then tried to find the museums. We didn’t at first, but we did find some of the “downtown.” For me it had all the feel of tourism that all historical areas have. Lots of place to buy relics, lots of country crafts. Perhaps I’m jaded.

We did find the International Museum of Spiritual Investigation. How could I refuse? It was amusing. The three rooms, each of them the size of a walk in closet did not offer the ‘proof’ we , or at least I, seek. It was still kind of neat - the had a voodoo doll, a Lilly Dale program, an original wooden Ouija board, lots of pictures that looked fake and some “equipment” that resembled Sony walkmans. I did learn that Hans Holzer died, that was news. But they also had a picture of Ed Warren and was holding him up as legitimate. (He’s not.) So, it was a fun 20 minutes… no need to return.

After this we did find the museums we were looking for - wax museum and diorama. But then we kind of took a wrong turn and ended up on the battlefield drive…. It is striking. And by striking, I personally mean horrific to see and think about. 6000 acres of battlefield. 6000.… of how many people killing each other?

I started thinking about this and initially thought okay, maybe if it were some other group coming on to US land threatening to take it away, and change our culture, maybe, but this was citizens against citizens. (Yeah, - that IS what CIVIL war means.) But then I thought, it was about preserving culture and maybe, heaven help me, we should have let the South be on their own… but then I thought of all the other horrible things people do to others (mostly women) in places that we get upset about and realized that there is no win. It’s just all bad. And here we are driving over field and field and field …. 6000 acres of battlefield and it looks like nothing. It could even look pretty, if you didn’t think about it. And it was just overwhelmingly sad.

So, as I’m sobbing we left the park and went back toward the museums. I’m thinking I have some moral obligation to actually learn more about this and the history. So we drive thru town again, and park and there is the museum next to the t-shirt shop. That was disturbing to me too, but we get out and we go to the diorama. Apparently it’s a show, not just a viewing and we’d just missed it’s start, but we’re looking at the little samples…. Bloody dead bodies… bloody dead horses…. I just couldn’t.

We decided to head out.

So we’re driving South, and the plan is to take this secondary (but numbered) route across to get to the Liberty Highway, Cumberland Gap and travel from Hagerstown, MD to Morgantown, WV. Now this should have been simple. It looked like a straight line - one route number. We get off the little highway - and we are in a state park! That’s kind cool. It’s been 110 degrees so, the drive thru the wood is cooler. There’s a little stream that runs next to the road…

Have I ever mentioned I get car sick? Up downs and tight turns and my head goes whoawooo. But, it’s cooler and it’s not that long and we are seeing the sights. The road signs say we are right, but the road is getting narrower and more ‘rural’. Then we cross this other road, that looks like a real road - not rural route road, But the numbers of that road are just wrong. It makes no sense. We think, okay, maybe it was to get to those other roads, so we forge ahead.

The road is a country road, lined with corn as high as an elephant’s eye. Rolling hills, but at least straight and we are going into nowhere. Then some more nowhere. Then we cross this charming stone bridge barely wide enough for one car. I say, “This can’t be right.” But how can it be wrong? Neither of us even remember really seeing any road to turn off of, except that one with the numbers. Hmmm. We go a little more. More corn. More farms. It was pretty. Kind of. But you know how yesterday when I wrote about the illusion of summer and rolling hills and farm houses… Yeah. No. NO. NOOOOOO.

We turned around an went back to the numbered road. I was happier. It turned out to be a good thing, because the number that we said didn’t seem right, was right and we were no where near the right road that we thought we were on. Though how we got off it will be a mystery forever.

Still, we made it to Hagerstown. It’s small. But really all we needed was the highway. This was the scenic highway, thru the Cumberland Gap.

Remember yesterday when I wrote I didn’t like mountains? I didn’t know what a mountain was. These mountains are serious mountains, they make NH and VT and the North Country NY look like cat toys. It’s not that I don’t like mountains. I hate mountains. At 2000 feet up, the elephant was firmly on my chest. At 2500, it was strangling me with his truck, and looking out at the tops of trees or sweeping drops to valleys? Not worth it for me. At 2800? Each little town looks tired, poor, worn out. It feels like life is hard, and I can’t breath on the way up. Then on the way down, when I can breath again, it only serves to remind me that I couldn’t breath before and it was mountains. Then the poor little car is chugging up again, working hard as it climbs and the elephant is climbing from the roof to my chest.

And then… there is strip mining. That wasn’t pretty either. And we’re finally in West Virginia. “Almost heaven,” it ain’t. We stuck to the highway into Morgantown, but looking off the road, and M. confirmed, I would NOT want to drive anywhere other than the interstate. The sheer drops down into nothingness …

Did I mention I don’t even like mountains?

Morgantown. It is everything bad I have ever heard from the three people (including Mike) I knew who lived there and more. The people seen on the street made the homeless of Willimantic look like Disney Greeters. I’d picked up the menu director at the rest stop. I’ve been around the block before, I knew that the tourist propaganda is deceiving. This was… more than that. The Italian restaurant was really a bar that sold pizza I suspect just to have a different licensing issue. You know the places - you order beer in the bottle because your afraid of the glass. There was no place I wanted to stop.

And the “hills”. Roads that were vertical. Drainage troughs at the side of the road that were a foot deep. No one here believes in guardrails. And I swear to you, I am not making this up: public service announcement posters at the bus stops told people to tie their shoes.

I told Mike, I’m glad to have done this. We NEVER have to go to WV again. Ever. And while if you like that sort of thing the Cumberland Gap is impressive, I do not like it and my body doesn’t like it and I will never do that again. Ever,

So we are now about 20 miles back in to PA, About an hour South of Pittsburg. We have a reservation for Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water house for 11:30 tomorrow. We are tired and are planning to take it easy and drive less tomorrow.

Mike has driven this drive that we did today before. W hen we left Gettysburg he had said to me he didn’t want to stop in MD or WV, there were just things about the place that weren’t comfortable. It’s hard to explain, but I now understand.

It is always striking to me that different states have different feels to them. These states have different feels. Maryland is better than West Virginia. In fairness, if it weren’t my personal mountain issues, it would just be rural - more rural than anything I’ve ever seen - upstate NY included. But not… scary. West Virginia? That was different.

We did see on a mountain top they were building wind mills. We’ve seen this before, but from the highway, we saw one of the wings. It’s HUGE. On arm of the wing looked like the size of plane or submarine. That sheer size was impressive. But not worth the ride. LOL

So, all in all, it was a long day. One that I’m glad to have done. One I will not do again.

PS - maybe more pictures to come - but it's not working well and I'm too tired to fight with it.