This mother nursing her babies beside the bank drive-through. Maybe she needed milk money?
Boomer Bottom Road in Boomer, WV--and the next road to it is Lenten Lane. Repent, ye sinners! (Now you do know, don't you, that a "bottom" in West Virginia means a small flat field beside a creek or river? Clean up your minds out there!)
Much mining of coal and coal equipment, like the Mammoth mines coal tipple.
Beautiful water, since we were following, for most of our journey, along the banks of the Great Kanawha River (pronounced kun naw', in case you wondered).
Four lovely waterfalls, like this one known as Cathedral Falls along Route 60 near Gauley Bridge.
And one old storyteller trying to keep her balance on the rocks beside said waterfall.
There is a lot of history along Route 60, also known as the Midland Trail because it was the main route for early frontiersmen and settlers, and legend has it that the route was originally traced by buffalo and native Americans. I've touched only a small portion of it. Traveling the old roads so often brings rewards, and it's why we left early enough to accommodate our ingrained rubbernecking tendencies.
I learned this evening that what we are actually has a name: shunpikers. Who knew? I thought I just preferred backroads, but evidently there are a lot of people just like me who travel the old roads in search of the real life of our country.
