West Virginia sometimes feels like a place left back in time .
It’s probably the only state that has fewer people than a century ago, an
outmigration have has led to a situation where very little new has been built
for decades. The houses all seem at least a half century old, and towns have
few modern buildings except for the service stations, chain restaurants, and
motels near highway interchanges. It’s actually quite nice compared to the
monotony of the human landscape across most of the country. Attitudes of
residents may also not be very modern, but I didn’t get into the kinds of
conversations where that might become apparent to me.

What could be more West Virginia than staying at a little
old motel (The Black Bear Motel) and waking up to look out the back window to
see two hunters skinning deer beside their pickup trucks?

The Allegheny Highlands in West Virginia are especially
empty and wild by eastern standards and almost entirely devoid of industry, and
where there is a factory or a power plant it looks like a ancient relic worthy
of historical preservation . In some ways I feel much more removed from the
modern world here than in the mountain valleys in the West.

The Greenbrier Hotel in White Sulphur Springs is one of the
grandest resorts in America and particularly popular with the movers and
shakers of Washington DC, so much so that an underground bunker was constructed
there during the Cold War era for the nation’s powerful to retreat to in case
of nuclear war. The bunkers became public information after the Cold War ended
and are now open for tours, my main reason for returning by this route through
eastern West Virginia. Unfortunately, though, the tours for the day were all
booked and I couldn’t cajole them into letting me join.