August 20th 2021

We stayed in West Virginia through August 20th. The last few days of our stay we toured the local insane asylum and took a brief tour there. The history of this place was amazing. We learned about a heist that led to West Virginia becoming its own state separate from Virginia. We also learned about just how few rights women had not that long ago. It was so easy to have a woman institutionalized for anything from burning dinner to praying too much and only the man who signed her in could get her back out again. It was a sad time in America for many women. Gram shared that this had in fact happened to her mother who was institutionalized in those days and they later had a hard time having her moved to be closer to them. I had heard some of these stories in passing before, we learned a lot more and had a much better sense of what that had been like after seeing this place.

We also visited a local cave and they had a gem mining area there. I was very excited about gem mining, but then it lost its magic when we picked up a bag of sand and “gems” in the gift shop that we then sifted in the water trough out back. Whomp whomp.

Hopefully I can find a place for us to stay tomorrow. After some discussion, we decided we can scratch WV off the map! After all, we had seen some sights, spent some time here, and eaten their famous pepperoni rolls. We didn’t find out until I read an article some weeks later that the place we bought pepperoni rolls from was actually the recommended spot! What are the odds. We will probably come back here one day…after all, there is a home here we can stay at for free and we didn’t visit a national/state park or national monument, and it was fairly nice. The only complaints were the heat and humidity (it also rained a fair amount) and the lack of internet or cell service in many areas.