Last Thursday, May 12th, we traveled to Mineral Wells, West Virginia for the West Virginia Samboree. Mineral Wells is about 300 miles to the west near Parkersburg, W.V. and Marietta, Ohio. Our route of travel was through mountainous regions of western Maryland and West Virginia. It was interesting that one area in Maryland along Keyser's Ridge near Frostburg had trees that had not produced leaves yet. All other areas had trees in full foliage. The rally was held at a fairground near Mineral Wells. Because of the recent rainy weather in that area the grounds were a little soggy. Luckily, we were parked parallel to a roadway on solid ground. For dinner on Thursday a potluck meal was planned so I hurriedly found some chili beans in my food supplies, added some smoked sausage, green peppers and onions and had a dish to take for potluck. There are always so many interesting foods to sample at these meals.
Since the Samboree does not officially start until Friday evening we went exploring the area during the day. Coldwater Creek, a line of women's clothing, has a distribution center in the area so we stop at the Clearence Center so I could do a little shopping.
Parkersburg had a farmer's market in the downtown area but since it is early in the season there was little to choose from. From the market we walked to a Jimmy John's sandwich shop for lunch. After lunch we drove a little north of Parkersburg to the Fenton Glass Factory. This factory continues to make beautiful glassware as it has for many years, piece by piece, some molded and some blown.
It is a dying art as glassware is being mass produced and sold for less money. We took a tour of the factory which is free, and then we browsed through the gift shop.
After returning back to the motorhome and eating dinner in (a soup bean, yes that is how it was named, and cornbread supper was available), we went to the opening cermonies and evening entertainment, The Steve Hussey Band, a local Parkersburg group, performed with a variety of music.
Saturday morning we had a pancake and sausage breakfast, went to a meeting for first timers to the West Virginia Samboree and then went out again to explore the area. We drove across the Ohio River to Marietta, Ohio. Along the river a tow boat was being restored.
At one time the Ohio river had quite a bit of commerce boat traffic. The tow boats were used to tow barges on the river. The underground railroad was active in this area as slaves crossed into Ohio, a non slave state. After a lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Marietta we went to another area along the Muskingum river, a tributary of the Ohio, where an old railroad bridge has a pedestrian bridge that we were able to walk on.
Crossing the bridge took us into the old section of Marietta originally called Harmar. There were a few shops in this old section. We went into the soda shop that had Coca-Cola memorabilia and a old fashion looking soda shop where lunches could be purchased. We opted for an ice cream cone.
Back at the Samboree in the evening we ate a baked steak dinner and then had entertainment by another local musical group that also had a variety of music.
Donuts and coffee were offered for Friday and Sunday breakfast but we choose to eat our cereal instead. After eating breakfast on Sunday morning we packed up and left before the closing ceremonies. Possible heavy rain was predicted and our motorhome has problems with water ingestion in heavy rain and we had almost 300 miles to travel so we didn't want to hang around until after 11am to start home. As it was we did hit some showers of rain but nothing real heavy that caused us any problems. The weekend was a nice time. The West Virginians are a friendly, fun group of folks. The area is a very pretty, green, hilly area. The weather was cloudy for the most part, warmer than we expected,with a few brief showers of rain.
