Roadtrip Days 7, 8 & 9 – West Virginia (Finally, The Conclusion!)

We got on the road in the morning to begin our trek to West Virginia for the first Pride In The Arts Festival at Longfork Campground, hosted and organized by my friend Len at Stonewall Society. I had mapped the trip out on Yahoo and it seemed to be a fairly easy trip to make in one day. By the time we got to Columbus, OH, I realized then that I should have planned to stop there for the night (and hopefully see some friends we have there). We did stop outside of Columbus for a great steak dinner. After that, it was back on the road.

Not too long after we left Columbus, the early stages of darkness were approaching and we still had anywhere between two or three hours to go. Yahoo Maps were great for every leg of the trip – except this one. When we got to West Virginia, and then finally to our exit, according to the maps, we only had a couple of miles to go. So we drove the few miles according to the map and saw a sign for Clendenin, West Virginia, which is the hometown for a girl I went to college with (Tammy, if you ever read this, “hi”) – but no campground. We went back to a general store we saw and asked them for directions to the right road – and got conflicting directions.

We drove down the same road toward – and then past – the exit to see if that was the way we should have gone, but the road seemed to end. By this time it was pitch black and getting fairly late. Calls to the campground went directly to voice mail. We drove back and forth a few times before making a turn which clearly wasn’t on the map. After driving another (seemed like a hundred) several miles, we found another general store we had been told to look for. It was purely luck that we found the campground, because it was on a small dirt road off of a small dirt road off of another road. By this time, we were relieved – and exhausted.

We were met at check-in by a friendly guy (one of the owners of the campground) named Eric. He took us to our accomodations for the weekend – a camper with a really nice deck built on. We were renting it from the owners for the weekend. Afterwards, I had a jack and diet coke to relax and we headed off to sleep after winding down for a while.

During the next day (Friday), we just chilled and read for a while. In the early afternoon, other artists began arriving to the campground. Eric and I each made a jack daniels and diet coke and headed to the pool. We spent a long time talking to Jade Estrada, Terry Christopher, Len, Mountman and a few others and had a really fun, relaxing time. After a while, Eric and I decided to head to the camper to eat dinner. Afterwards, we refilled our empty glasses – while finishing off the bottle of Jack – and went back to the pool.

The evil, impromptu bartender Terry Christopher made me an apple martini. Mountman also made me a cocktail that we had discussed earlier (but I can’t remember what it had in it). At this point, I had THREE cups at the side of the pool. And that’s where things start to get blurry. Eric said he was going to go back to the camper and read. I said I’d be along in a while. By this time, the haze was getting a bit thick, but I noticed the pool area had gotten very crowded, and as I walked back home, I thought I remembered seeing Robert Urban at the pool. Plus, I finally got to meet Roger Kuhn, who I had been looking forward to meeting. I got back to the camper and told Eric that I thought I had met them, commenting, “Robert used to have long hair, but he’s got a really cool haircut…I think.” (He does). When I left the pool, everyone was starting to set up their instruments for an impromptu jam session.

At that point, I laid down for a few minutes. I woke up, sat straight up and bolted out of the bed. Eric asked me, “Where are you going?” I said, “I don’t know.” I walked up to the pool and everything was SILENT – no jam session. I used the outhouse and headed back to the camper. At that point, I looked at my watch and realized it was 4:30 in the morning.

I got up around 9:30 the next morning, changed my guitar strings, practiced for a while, and got summoned down the hill to play. When I got down the hill, I saw Robert Urban (visually confirming his new, cool haircut) and Roger Kuhn and realized that I had indeed seen them at the pool. Robert said, “Mike, you just disappeared last night. You should have stayed for our jam session.” But I knew that I wouldn’t have been able to HOLD my guitar, much less play it. That had to be one of the drunkest times ever in my life – at least in a VERY long time!

I ended up going on earlier than scheduled. I went on after Rubberlegs. Rubberlegs has a really cool, electronic sound — they obviously have a ton of influences but I thought I could hear just a bit of Depeche Mode in them. I don’t know why, but I was a bit nervous playing. I did a shorter than normal set of Lucky, Just Like New, Forgot To Forget, Big Man on Campus, and Who I Am. There weren’t a lot of people at the performance area, but I still enjoyed performing. I watched Robert Urban’s performance (he knows how to play a guitar!), plus a few other acts.

At that point, I said my goodbyes and went back to the camper. Eric and I had decided to leave on Saturday afternoon instead of Sunday morning so we could break up the drive back to Atlanta. We got on the road, stopped at an Applebees somewhere in West Virginia, and then kept driving for a few hours before we stopped at a hotel in North Carolina for the night. We ended up staying in a handicap room (the only room available with a king sized bed), which pissed me off. But Eric was the voice of reason and reminded me that we would only be there a few hours so there was no need to get upset about it.

We got up on Sunday morning, ate at another Waffle House and began the drive back home. When we got to the outskirts of Atlanta, we saw that traffic was backed up for miles in the opposite direction due to a wreck. We were very thankful we weren’t on that side of the highway! Tim and Wendy had already returned the dogs to our house. We got home in the early afternoon and were glad to see the dogs and our cat. It was also a great feeling to be home again.

So that was our trip. We put approximately 2,600 miles on my car, met some good friends, re-connected with some friends, sang a few shows, saw my favorite musical artist in concert, road a lot of roller coasters, drank a few too many cocktails, stayed in a bunch of hotels and a camper, and used an outhouse. It was a great vacation, made even better by the time we had to talk in the car. In our age of “Get me there quick,” sometimes it’s best to do things a bit slower. So until we take our next great vacation, these are my memories…