In the State Penn at Moundsville, Wheeling, WV

Yeah, you heard it right. We ended up in the State Pen at Moundsville. The old State Pen, that is. It's an imposing old building.

We did the tour, which was very interesting. Our tour guide was an ex-prison guard. He entertained us with anecdotes as well as information.

 Some of the artwork left behind by prisoners.

 Not a lot of room in there.

There was plenty of graffiti. There was also some wonderful artwork done by prisoners all over the walls. Some of the prints are for sale.

There was a section for women prisoners there too, and one of the most notable female prisoners was Charles Manson's mother. One of his uncles was also in there.

In the display room there's a letter from Charles Manson requesting to be transferred there to be closer to his family. I believe the reply went something along the lines of: not even if the Devil ice skates past my door.

 Old Smokey.

After the tour we went back down to the banks of the Ohio River.

It's not too bad down by the river. Big barges still use the river to transport coal.

 A coal barge went by.

We left Wheeling and once again ended up lost due to the GPS signals being all messed up. We found ourselves driving through the grounds of the new prison. Wow! That is some huge place.

The road we were on ended in a blockade. All our signals were jammed. It was a bit scary. We turned around and got out of there as fast as we could.

I hope that if we ever get back this way, we'll find Wheeling a renewed, grand old city once more.

Bridgeport to Wheeling, West Virginia

Talk about taking the road less traveled! I think we took the road never traveled to Bridgeport. Thanks to our Garmin, we ended up on a winding little track through the mountains. It was a very pretty drive, but the road began to get narrower and narrower, windier and windier, and steeper, until we were on a one car track through overhanging jungle.

We had no idea how long this track was going to be, and no idea where it was going to come out. I was driving at the time. I couldn't turn around. My only choice was to keep driving until we got to... somewhere.

Somewhere turned out to be behind the shops and other buildings at Bridgeport. We literally were spat out of the tiny track onto the main street. I had to slam the brakes on to stop from shooting right across the road in front of the other traffic. We had no idea what town we were in nor what state we were in.

We were in Bridgeport, Ohio. Just across the Ohio River was Wheeling, West Virginia, our intended destination.

We drove over the bridge into Wheeling but didn't like what we saw. Nowhere is the downturn in the economy more noticeable than here.

All those once-grand old buildings look shabby. Many of them are empty with broken windows and peeling paint. This is still a working river port coal town. Many huge flat barges push or pull coal piles up and down the river. Some teenage boys were fishing there. We asked them about what they caught and whether they ate the fish. They told us the water was too poluted for them to eat anything that came out of it.

We decided not to stay right in  Wheeling. We stayed out of town in a nice hotel.

I'm having my first martini - a chocolate one.

Geoff had a beer with Dean Martin.





















The next morning we went to Moundsville, like a suburb of Wheeling.

This is an Indian burial mound. It's a bit like an Egyptian pyramid in internal structure.

The people who lived in  this area and built these mounds were the Adena people.








We walked up the path that spiraled around the mound. I could imagine what it must have been like back in those days. It was peaceful and beautiful. Apparently it had once been a lot higher, but time and many archaeological excavations, plus the pounding of many tourist feet, had worn it down to its present height, which was quite impressive.

I was not comfortable walking up the mound. I felt like an intruder. The energy was not welcoming here. I didn't stay at the top very long. I felt like it was very disrespectful to the Adena people to be treading all over their sacred place. I felt the energy of the ancestors bearing down on me with thier sorrow over their mound being desecrated and trampled all over by strangers.

These are views from the top of the burial mound.

Great views of the town but I got off there as quickly as possible.