And the rally begins

Day 3

Sunday, September 2, 2018

Pulled out of the parking lot at 7 just as planned and the fog was so thick you could cut it with a knife.  Had heavy fog for an hour and then patchy fog for the next hour.  Gas and rest stop at 9 and then back on the road.  Traveling I 81 allows for making great time.  We reached Big Stone Gap by 11:35 AM.  The mountains are beautiful.  Once we got off I81 and on to 58 we traveled through a couple of small towns and then mostly open country with lush green growth, corn fields and one or two fields of tobacco just now turning yellow.  A total of 239 miles today. Room wasn’t even ready yet so we walked next door to the Huddle House for lunch.  Our room is beautiful!  Fireplace, jacuzzi tub; large screen TV, balcony and a king size bed.  At 6PM we all gathered in the lobby to follow Gary to the Visitor’s Center downtown.  The town is old, very old, and much like other small towns across our nation with one exception – they have a young tourism director and a young city manager and they have some very upbeat ideas.  As the city manager said they do not have the land to attract businesses but they have the one thing most people now days are searching for – nature, God’s creation and a slower way of life.  They have created a 3 mile greenway for walking and biking and plans are in the works to expand that to about 18 miles connecting to a near by town.  The region has developed hundreds of miles of ATV trails and already it is bringing in about 20 million dollars to the whole region.  We met the mayor, city manager, tourism director and a historian who was full of information.  He has lived here all his life, worked the coal mines and is now involved heavily with the development of the town and the region.  Very informative.  Gary then gave us some history of the places we will visit, Ruth shared a song we are to learn and then of course Gary handed out a paper with a story but a lot of the language is in the Appalachia English.  We are to translate the various terms.  I worked on it last night for about an hour using the Internet.  I was also very surprised to find I use or my family used a lot of the “Hillbilly” English.  Who would have guessed I was a Hillbilly?