West Virginia (Paul's page)

P a u l ' s
	W e s t V i r g i n i a

	"Wild, Wonderful..."

click photo to go to
www.state.wv.us

The destination of many a family vacation when I was growing up...
Prior to being probably 20 or more years old, West Virginia was the only place I'd ever been outside of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. And West Virginia was the only place different from the flatlands of the southeast... For this reason it almost seemed surreal to this ten-year-old boy, like another planet. The mountains, the rugged terrain, it even smelled different (in a good way of course). A thing I look forward to even now is getting up into those Allegheny Mountains and just smelling the sweet fragrance of a million hardwood trees (in my native Columbia nine out of every ten trees is a pine tree—ho hum).

Add to that the mystique of staying in the old farmhouse, 'roughing it' by taking baths in the icy water of the mill pond (using Ivory Soap because it floats!), having Coco Wheats and buckwheat cakes for breakfast, everything just came together to make quite the impression on a 10-year-old!