Today was a travel day. We left Beech Fork State Park and crept up the skinny rural West Virginia roads necessary to get us back on I-64 west. Once on the interstate, we again started the up-and-down and back-and-forth that is West Virginia roads. In only about 15 freeway miles we crossed into Kentucky and not too much further down the road the freeway became downright easy to drive with an enormous vehicle, like ours. The speed limit even went up to 70.
West Virginia is a state with magnificent scenery. There are extensive forests, beautiful stream and river valleys, abundant wildlife, flowers along the roads, some very nice folks and verdant state parks. Unfortunately, the state is riddled with Dogpatch hamlets where atrocious housing is being currently utilized by what appear to be miserable folks. Dentistry seems to be a lost art here. There is scant work available or the population is unsuitable for simple work because it looks like everybody is unemployed. The schools look like fenced juvenile prisons. Only church buildings look inhabitable and they are closed and locked six and a half days a week. There are old cars and lumps of metal that used to be old cars widely distributed in yards, fields and along the roads. More than half the buildings in the bigger towns are shuttered and either decaying or already collapsed. Unsanitary and possibly toxic formerly operating industrial sites are intermingled with residential neighborhoods. The roads are dreadful. The pharmacies are built like blockhouses. There is way too much Oxycontin, hydrocodone, Fentanyl and death. In just the towns of Kermit, Mt.Gay and Williamson, 20 million doses of opiates were prescribed for less than 3000 people in 5 years. More than 6000 doses of opiates per person in 60 months or 1200 doses per year, per person, seems a bit high. Overdose is a leading cause of death since there isn’t much else to do when you are destitute, filthy, ignorant, mastication-challenged and proud of it. It is hard to ignore the crushing poverty, the desperate longing for coal mining to return, the trapped people unable to finance escape from this pretty hell.
It is a strange place for me. It seems that properly directed investment in this gorgeous place could yield benefits for some of the people but evidence of poorly engineered and, in hindsight, hysterically inappropriate improvements are rampant statewide. Is it corruption or do the citizens merely not give a damn? Why can’t these hayseeds pull their heads out of the fire and progress? No wonder they vote for Trump; they are desperate for somebody to come and save their dumb asses, like a big, orange, fat messiah. It is depressing. I have never been anywhere like WV before and it is unlikely I will return. I think living in rural Mexico is preferable to living in West Virginia.
Fortunately, today we escaped WV and crossed into Kentucky, finally pulling off the interstate near Lexington where we vectored southwest to Boonesboro State Park. It is quite nice. They even have wifi – in a state park. We anticipate going over to the fort and larnin’ all ’tis tuh know about Dan’l Boone, mebee tomorrow. That’s if we don’t go grocery shopping which will work here because they have Trader Joe’s and Costco and other supermarkets in Kentucky, unlike West Virginia.