My first official day in Charleston, and I wasn’t really in Charleston that much at all.

Today was supposed to be a ‘background’ day; a day for gathering general information on the West Virginia coal industry and the historical/cultural interpretation thereof. A month ago, I spoke to someone who may have been able to help me out in that regard, and was asked to get in touch with them when my travel plans firmed up. I did. Twice with no reply.

I was hoping that today would be the day to meet with that person. To talk with them, to listen, to learn. But it didn’t work out that way. Not content to let the day go all to hell, I hopped in the car and headed an hour down the interstate to Beckley, WV where there is an exhibition coal mine. I figured if I couldn’t talk one-on-one with a coal heritage expert, at least I could go to a museum and tour a mine myself.

But, well, that didn’t work out either. The coal mine itself is closed for renovations (that just sounds bizzare), and the attached museum just happens to be closed on Mondays. I sat in the parking lot and let myself get annoyed for about 2 minutes, and then a thought occurred to me. I didn’t really need to see the museum or the exhibition coal mine in order to include them in to my paper. I just need the paper to include a section on how WV’s coal heritage is being interpreted and make reference to the exhibition coal mine/museum as well as other sites that I’ll conveniently be able to find on the internet. I got out of the car and snapped some pics of the museum facilities that I could see and left happy that at least part of my paper’s outline was falling in to place.

With nothing else on my agenda, I decided to return to Charleston, but I decided to do it without involving the interstate. The way I found was heading northwest out of Beckley on state route 3, a winding and sometimes steep road that snaked through the Coal River valley. I passed coal mines and coal towns. The rivers and creeks were a disturbing shade of bright green. The towns has names like Metalton, Montcoal, and Surveyor. I passed an elementary school with a barbed wired-fenced schoolyard that was directly next to a looming coal processing facility. There was beauty there; steep-sided valleys, fields and meadows, rows of company houses with well-kept yards. But there was poverty too. So much poverty. Coal trucks came rocketing around corners, giving me a scare each time. At one point I came around a corner to see the immediate aftermath of a car accident. Paramedics had already responded. The line of cars I was in moved on and, when out of sight of the scene, I was immediately passed by the service truck that had been following me. We were on a blind curve with a double yellow.

Back in Charleston, I returned to the hotel, checked my email, and sat down for a bit. I went downtown for dinner, finding it almost exactly as deserted as it had been the night before. I can’t figure out Charleston’s downtown. I’m sure I go there at all the wrong times, but it strikes me as a weird and empty place. There are signs of its former life: tall buildings, fine architecture, banks, theaters, department stores. But it’s gone now. And I really haven’t seen suburbs yet. I don’t know where everyone is.

While wandering around trying to find dinner, I stopped in at a local independent book store I’d heard of. Taylor’s is a great place – exactly what a store of its type should be. While walking around I found a book called Coal River about the very communities I drove through today. The clerk said it was an excellent book and that the author was a really nice guy. I can’t wait to read it.

After I ate (roast beef sub), I graded some midterms for the class I’m TA’ing. As I said to Emily, if you’re ever feeling positive about the intellectual capacity of our nation’s young adults, try grading some midterms for an undergraduate history course.

My. God.

But now it’s late and I’m tired and I have a big day tomorrow! I meet with people! I get to have actual conversations with someone other than a.)my wife by cellphone or b.)myself.

One mile for every day of the year! My longest stretch yet! Holy mother of sweet Jesus is it nice to not have to be in the car for five hours at a time for a few days.

So, yeah, yesterday was a long drive. So long that by the time I got to Charleston, all I wanted to do was check in to my hotel, find some food, and vegetate in front of the TV. Which is exactly what I did. (Which is why this entry is late. Desire to veg trumps blog-updating responsibilities every time.)
In the food finding process though, I did take the opportunity of not being in the car to get out and walk around for a little bit. I’m technically in downtown I guess, but really a mile and a half or so from the city center. So I drove to as close to the middle of the city n order to wander around a bit and find a bite to eat.

Which didn’t really work out so well.

I don’t know if it was because it was a Sunday at 7:30 pm, but man – that was one dead town. There was some vehicular traffic and a very small handful of other pedestrians, but it really felt like I’d wandered on to the set of some post-apocalyptic movie. At one point, some guy across the street yelled “Hey!!!!! Do you know if mrffgrrrhsgfstshgdggfffm is open?” I stammered out a ‘no’ and hurried on. There were a few blocks where I honestly couldn’t tell if I’d wandered in to a shady area or a non shady area of businesses who normally just shutter up for the weekend. There were no people to give me context. Context is everything.

The best I could do for dinner was Captain D’s Seafood, which I guess is like the Burger King to Long John Silver’s McDonald’s. It was ok, but probably more because I was starving than for actual taste reasons.

Today is day 1 in Charleston and technically my schedule is wide open. I do have two irons in the fire though, so we’ll see if they pan out.

Back again to a place that is no longer home.

I love Baltimore and always will, but it’s been interesting to see how living in Vermont has realigned my various scales. Wait…what?

Before living in VT, anything below 30 degrees felt fairly cold to me. After living through (most of) a Vermont winter, now I don’t feel a temperature’s cold until it’s in the teens. Likewise, when I was living here, Baltimore always felt right-sized at best and more often slightly small. But today? Today while I was driving through town, Baltimore felt unmanageably big.

So, yeah, here isn’t home anymore. But I’ve known that for a while.

It’s been a good day, but damned if it didn’t start off a little weird. I was all set to leave Binghamton when I stopped for a pre-getting-on-the-road email check. Good thing I did because I had a message from my hotel in Charleston kindly informing me that the guest staying in my room decided to extend their stay and that they canceled my reservation. They left an 800 number, so I called and had choice words with the moronic and mush-mouthed “reservations manager”. To his credit, he did offer to make new reservations for me at another hotel, but I told him I didn’t want him anywhere near my reservations. So I found a new hotel and all should be fine.

The drive to Baltimore was rainy and foggy, but never close to freezing, so I was able to make reasonably good time. Once in Maryland, I had lunch with friends Joey and Amanda, saw my cousin Pete’s house, saw my cousin Emily and her husband Zach, and had dinner with friends Ben and Tara (who are nice enough to put me up for the night.)

One thing I haven’t really thought about since I moved to Vermont is crime, but tyoday I made sure that I didn’t park my car with anything stealable showing and made sure the club was firmly affixed to my steering wheel before coming inside for the night. Ben says his block has seen a car break-in spree, so I’m nervous.

Again, nothing preservation related today other than someone who let me describe what I’m going to school for and then proceeded to talk about how a nearby neighborhood should be totally razed because it was beyond saving. Nice. (Also, totally untrue.)

Tomorrow I drive to Charleston where I will have a king bed and a distinct lack of five-hour driving days for a while.

The too-many beers I’ve had tonight are telling me it’s time to sleep.

(Oh, also I’m not the only preservation student blogging their spring break trip. Check out http://jessiebisventingagain.blogspot.com!)