Country Road Trip: To West Virginia and Back

Spring is road trip season, and last Friday I took off on a drive from Philadelphia to Morgantown, West Virginia, to visit my sis.  She moved there earlier this year to undertake a year-long dietary internship, and her love for her adopted home town knows no bounds.

West Virginia gets a bad rap, especially among I-95-corridor types.  (Cue the jokes--some of which I've admittedly made myself--about banjo music, meth labs, and having a purty mouth.)  My sister was eager to show me what Morgantown, West Virginia is really like: a funky college town surrounded by some truly gorgeous countryside.  A neat rail-to trail path wends along the Monongahela River.  The city is home to a number of intriguing restaurants, homey brew pubs, lots of live music (including bluegrass, of course), and a charming little place called Blue Moose Coffee where we had Sunday morning quiche.

Best of all, the city's just down the road apiece from the Fiestaware Factory and its annual tent sale:

We got a little lost on our way to the tent sale, and wound up driving through some neighborhoods that did more closely conform to stereotype. I wish I'd taken a picture of the shack with "I miss you darlin" and a daisy spray-painted on the outside.  (And I really hope Darlin sees this tribute and comes home.)

The tent sale alone was worth the trip with awe-inspiring amounts of Fiestaware at binge-inspiring prices.  I was too busy digging for treasure to take pictures of the sale itself.  Luckily the outlet store was nearby--offering up a rainbow of photo opportunities:

After that, we took a drive to Tractor Supply to ogle chicks:

The weather wasn't very cooperative, or we'd have done a lot more walking.  By the time my sister saw me off on Sunday morning, the sun was finally shining:

And I'd seen enough of Morgantown to know I want to go back and see more.