July 27, 2013

Rain, Rain, Go Away....that was the theme for this leg of our journey.  We drove in rain the entire day.  Sometimes it was light and at other times the rain was quite heavy.  We kept the pedal to the metal and were quite serious about our travel time.

We went via 30 to 75 to 70.  We stopped and took a walk in an antique mall (I don’t remember where) that was huge.  Mom and I split up as we enjoy looking at different things.  I found a vase that is identical to the two that I have at home from my grandmother.  It was priced at $225.  I am planning to give these to Laura as they will look beautiful in her house.  I will mark them so she doesn’t sell them at a garage sale for $1 someday.

Along the way we shared memories of our prior trip to Wheeling, WV with my grandfather, Stinker.  Stinker was quite the guy and passed away two weeks after our return to Indiana.  He kept telling us that this was his farewell trip and he was right. Laura is convinced that he planned it this way.

We were on 70 and were about 20 miles from Wheeling when it began raining in buckets.  I hopped off the interstate and we finished our drive on US 40--The National Road.  It was a delightful drive and took us right downtown Wheeling and then onto the Dallas Pike which will take you to Dallas where Stinker grew up.

The Dallas Pike is a very narrow road that winds up and down, in and out, and snakes back through the hollow to  a tiny, narrow, hillside town called Dallas.  Driving down the pike, Mom and I both noticed that the road seemed in really good shape and was sporting new guard rails.  We thought this interesting and then we started to see many tanker trucks parked along the way.  

Fast Forward:  Our cousin later told us that they are fracking for gas/oil and that almost everyone has been paid for the mineral rights to the land.  She said that they have counted 300 tanker trucks going down the pike on a single day.  Their whole way of life has been disrupted.  She said workers are living in campers as they cannot get housing.  We did notice lots of campers dotting the countryside, but didn’t know why.  It just looked like people were living there and not recreating. This has also led to huge shopping and hotel developments in the area.  A new Cabbella’s, strip malls, Wal-Mart, and every restaurant imaginable now sits where we used to stay in a dumpy hotel.  Our accommodations were much nicer as compared to 20 years ago.

We drove up to Dallas to refresh our memory on Stinkers past.  The town has really changed, but we were able to see a couple of landmarks from Stinker’s memoirs (which I forgot to pack.) We did make a cold call to the Rock Valley Farm where a cousin lived 20 years ago.  She and her husband live on the farm that has been in the family since the 1850s.  The home is constructed from stone that was cut from a huge rock in the pasture.  There is also a wash   room, spring house, and barn that are in near original condition.  They are restoring the spring house this summer.  Earlier last week a construction worker found a pair of pants that had been stuffed into a hole in the wall. The pants were very, very old--without a zipper, but instead a button flap.  They had been mended many, many times.  

Janet and Bill were excited to have us stop in.  We should have called, but Mom couldn’t remember their last name, but she could remember the visits from her childhood.  They shared a few stories and then Janet gave us a tour of the farmhouse.  Mom had been in the house years ago, but it was my first time.  They have worked hard to restore/keep the home in its original condition and were able to place the home on the National Register of Historic Places.  They are working to strip the plaster off of the rock walls which is a huge job, but looks fabulous when it is finished.  They also found the original sale bill advertising the auction when Stinker’s Uncle Bill purchased the property way back when.  The original price for the farm/house/land was $12,000.  It would be many hundreds of thousands now.  I wonder what the oldsters would think of the fracking and the pipeline that now runs through the farm.  Janet didn’t speak too highly of the fracking, but she did admit to getting a fair price for the pipeline fee.  Very different times ahead for these people.