From the flat plains of Ohio we drifted out one day,
for the southern part of the journey
Underneath the bridge, the Ohio River sang
As we headed for the Hills of West Virginia

             -- Phil Ochs, "The Hills of West Virginia"

As kind of an early and abbreviated summer vacation, we drove down to the Huntington, West Virginia/Ashland, Kentucky area last weekend.  When I was born – so the story goes – my folks were living in Ashland but there were no hospitals delivering babies on that side of the river at the time.  So I was delivered across the river in Huntington. We left the Ashland area in 1982 or 1983 and I didn't make it back to visit until 1997 or so.  On that visit, Thomai and I took Domino along (this was before our girls came along) and we did a little sight seeing, but it was hard to get around with our big, goofy dog in tow. In the 10 years that have passed, I have wanted to go back and visit from time to time and when the opportunity presented itself this year, we jumped at it.

I have a lot of fond memories of the Ashland/Huntington area.  I especially appreciate the hills, mountains and the forests of the area after having spent the last two decades of my life in the flat, flat Miami Valley of southwestern Ohio. During the drive to Huntington, I even found myself starting to sound a bit like my dad as I tried to explain to the kids how glaciers had shaped the terrain of our part of Ohio.  I probably didn't get all the details right, but at least it sounded pretty good at the time.  The terrain really starts to change around Chillicothe, Ohio as you head east on SR-35 and then south down SR-23.  The rolling hills and high mountains even reminded me a bit of Greece.  The treacherous drive down SR-335 was about as unnerving as the rural roads in northeastern Greece.

We reached Huntington by Friday afternoon and that evening, we visited my old neighborhood in the Russell/Flatwoods area and I took a bunch of pictures. The old neighborhood looks a lot like it used to in some respects, but there has  also been a fair amount of growth in the area over the years.  The vacant lot next to our old house is now filled with a house that almost seems a bit too large for its lot.  I spent a lot of afternoons playing in the lot as well as in the field and woods behind it, but all of those things are gone now.  K. and I walked through the side yard of the newer house to venture back into the area that used be known as "The Creek."  I had not been this adventurous when we visited back in 1997 and I was really curious to check it out this time.  Sure enough, "The Creek" and the surrounding woods are pretty much gone. All that remains is a small drainage ditch that is virtually dry (although I could still make out a trickle of dark orange water flowing in the remnants of the creek bed). There is a smaller drainage ditch running from the street back to the old creek, but it was mostly  covered by grass and it was completely dry – something I learned as I accidentally stepped into it, almost twisting my ankle twice on the way back to the car.
at Giovanni's
Dinner at the old Giovanni's

We drove down the access road behind our old neighbors' home and I saw that the tree line along the back of their home (and the neighboring homes) was all gone (a bit of it remained in 1997).  Our neighbors' big back yard is now filled with a large in-ground pool and our old back yard is now home to a large modular garage-like building.  The farm land that used to be in back of our homes is now developed into newer homes and apartments.  It's progress, I suppose.  I still have dreams about these places to this day and I am grateful for my fond memories.

We ate dinner at the Giovanni's in Flatwoods.  My folks use to take us to Giovanni's on weekends and I remember some good times there.  There are actually Giovanni's restaurants all over the eastern Kentucky/southern Ohio area now, but we managed to find the one that I remembered from my childhood.  The interior has been remodeled and they serve their pizza buffet-style now, but the pizza itself is just as good as I had remembered it and it was a big hit with Thomai and the girls.  We had a great time.

Saturday morning, I ventured into Huntington by myself, hoping to visit a book store.  I had found a listing for the store in a phone book at the hotel and I printed some MapQuest directions off of a computer in the hotel's media center.  Somehow, though, the MapQuest directions were incredibly inaccurate and the led me to a spot that was about 2 miles away from my real destination.  I did have a decent enough time driving around the city, though, and a nice old man outside the YMCA  gave me the directions that I needed to reach the store.  I was a little disappointed to find that the bookstore I had been seeking was basically a chain store that sold mostly new books, but I was really impressed at their selection of independent and lefty political magazines and I picked up copies of a few good ones that I had never even heard of: The Anarcho-Syndicalist Review, The Northeastern Anarchist, and Socialism and Liberation.  I figured these would make some good reading at the hotel, but as I was paying for them I did make a mental note of the fact that I had read exclusively from a small cache of 1970's comic books since our arrival the day before.  This was despite the fact that I had also brought a decent supply of serious reading material by Angela Davis, Alexander Pushkin and others along on the trip.

After meeting up with the girls back at the hotel, we went back to downtown Huntington for lunch at the Marshall University Hall of Fame Café.  Our lunch was surprisingly good.  We walked around downtown for a bit and rested at the hotel before we set out for our big activity of the day – a visit to Camden Park.

Camden ParkI had been to Camden Park a handful of times as a kid and I am guessing that the last time I had visited was around 25 years ago.  The absolutely amazing thing about our visit was that the place seemed virtually unchanged to me. The big sign out front was just as I'd remembered it and the big attractions like the "Dodge 'em" cars and the Haunted House looked just as they had in my mind's eye for all these years.  I had mentioned the Haunted House ride to K. because she is something of a Scooby-Doo aficionado and she was interested in checking it out.  The last thing she said before the ride started was "This isn't scary at all."  This statement was followed by about two and a half minutes of absolute terror for K.  I spent most of the ride reassuring her that I was right next to her and once it was all over, I promised her that she would never have to go on the ride again.

To me, the biggest change at the park seemed to be the old train ride, which I used to call "The Indian Train" when I was a kid.  It used to be a "wild west" train ride through "Indian territory" and as I recall, there was a soundtrack of war whoops and battle noises along with battle scenes featuring painted statues.  I think some of them might have been pretty morbid.  I seem to recall a tomahawk scene, but I can't recall for sure.  Anyway, the train ride is now just that: a simple train ride.  It's a short loop around part of the park and you can look at the log flume and paddle boat pond while you're enjoying the ride.  I kind of figured that the train "engineer" was probably the same one from two and a half decades ago, but I didn't have the heart to ask him how long he had been there.  He looked pretty worn out.

Z. had her fist experience with the cruel world of carnival games while we were at Camden Park.  Thomai took her to a kiosk which featured a game where players use little catapult-like devices to try and lob plastic frog son to small lilly pads.  If you can land 3 out of 4 frogs on the pad, you win a giant stuffed SpongeBob.  After 4 unsuccessful attempts, Zoya decided to take on the lady who was running the booth.  "HEY," she yelled, "Is this game hard or WHAT?  We're not winning ANYTHING!"  The park worker had a good laugh at Z.'s display of chutzpah.

After the park, we got some dinner at Bob Evans, which was the only restaurant  in town that was still open that time of the night (9:30 PM!) . We usually steer clear of Bob Evans, but it wasn't as bad as we were expecting this time.  It was actually pretty nice.  The fact that we were all together, relaxing, laughing and enjoying ourselves made what was an ordinary meal feel very special.

Once we got back to the hotel, we were all pretty tired.  Thomai and K. were ready to sleep, but Z. still had a little life left in her.  I decided to try to read a bit  from the volume of of Pushkin I had brought along, thinking that would help me get ready for sleep.  Since the lights were all out in the room, I read with the flashlight I had brought.  Z.  was interested in what I was reading and she wanted me to read out loud to her, so I read a bit from Pushkin's "The Tale of the Golden Cockerel."  Thomai and K. groaned with every stanza and Z. shushed them a few times, saying, "My daddy and I like to READ!"  Eventually, though, I gave into the pleas for peace and quiet from the other side of the room and we all drifted off to sleep, exhausted from our eventful day.

The next morning, we went through the motions of the typical "last day" of a vacation, packing our things, combing through the room to make sure weren't leaving stuff behind, checking out and all that stuff.  We were already reminiscing about our great little vacation as we headed for home.

Many years ago, the great Phil Ochs wrote his song "The Hills of West Virginia" during a trip to Hazard, Kentucky.  He said he wrote the lyrics as a way of taking pictures with his mind on account of the fact he had forgotten to bring his camera along with him.  Luckily, we remembered to take a  camera on our trip and I have posted a small gallery of photos here.