Hawks Nest State Park

I visited this state park, located south and east of Charleston,  several years ago, but the nice thing about state parks is that they only change with the seasons.  I stayed in the park lodge and used the cable car, which is called the aerial tram, to get down to the New River.  Being an old movie fan, I couldn’t help but think of the Clint Eastwood WWII movie Where Eagles Dare while I rode on the tram.  I also took a jet boat out onto the river, where you have great views of the New River Gorge Bridge.  I also visited nearby Babcock State Park. I love being out in nature and recommend visiting both parks.

New River Gorge Bridge is the second largest single span bridge in the world and the third highest in the U.S.  On the third Saturday in October, the bridge is closed to traffic and people can walk across it and watch BASE jumpers jump off it.  All kinds of events are planned for the day, so check out this site if you are interested.

The Hatfields and the McCoys

I  read a very good book about one of the most infamous episodes in West Virginia’s history, Blood Feud: the Hatfields and the McCoys: the Epic Story of Murder and Vengeance.  What I liked about this book is that besides relating the events of the feud, the author explores why it’s still famous a hundred years late.  There were other feuds — the ones the author researched were all in Kentucky — and they are all almost forgotten.  Some of these feuds were longer and bloodier than the Hatfield-McCoy feud, so it wasn’t the violence that made it memorable.  Ms. Alther puts the enduring popularity down to media attention.  T.C. Crawford wrote An American Vendetta in 1888.  The book “reached a wide audience and spawned spin-offs in the form of novels and silent movies.”  It  also created the stereotype of the violent, stupid hillbilly.

We see the media doing the same thing now.  Certain crimes and trials become more well known than others because of how they are written and recorded, not because of anything inherent in the crimes or trials themselves.

Click here to visit the author’s page about the book.

The Pen

When I visited the Grave Creek Mound, I went with a group of kids.  As we pulled up to the mound, one of them looked across the street and asked, “Why is there a castle?”  He was looking at the decommissioned West Virginia State Penitentiary, which served the state from 1876 to 1995.  His question was understandable.  It did look like somebody had plopped a European castle in the middle of an all-American town.  I took the photos below from the mound, which give you a great view of the Pen and the impression that you could lead a victorious assault on the “castle” from your high, strategic position, if you happened to have an army with  you.  We do have some family history with the Pen.  My great-grandfather was guard at the prison during World War II when young men were in short supply.

The Pen is now privately owned.  I have not taken any of the tours.  The place looks creepy enough on the outside.  My mom taught briefly in Moundsville in the ’60’s and led a field trip of high school students to the Pen when it was still a working prison.  She said the kids were goofing off and enjoying getting out of school on the bus ride to the Pen.  After the tour, she said the bus ride home was very quiet.

Click here to see the Wikipedia article about the Pen.

West Virginia Wednesdays

On Wednesdays, I’m going to write about West Virginia, the setting of my books.  Both sides of my family are from this beautiful state, and I grew up just across the river in an area of Ohio considered part of Appalachia.

This summer I visited the Grave Creek Mound in Moundsville.  I hadn’t visited it since I was a kid.  The mound is sixty-two feet high — it felt a lot taller from the top — and is around 2,000 years old.  There aren’t many man-made objects in the U.S. that are that old.  I felt like I was connecting with history.  To learn more visit this site.