Blue Jay, WV

September 27, 2007

Today was a long day with a late start and Blue Jay 120 miles away.  We stopped in Milton and took the factory tour at Blenko Glass.  While signing the visitor book, Alesa noticed that the person signed in before us was from Ripley, NY so we tracked them down.  They were relatively new to Ripley but we had a good conversation, small world!  We took back roads to Beckley/Blue Jay.  WV sure is mountainous and I believe we drove around every one of them but it was a beautiful drive just the same.  There were coal mines everywhere and I think every turtle in WV had to cross in front of us on this trip.  We arrived in Blue Jay and I drove to the GPS coordinates the web had for the post office and it was just two groups of mailboxes on the road.  We drove around quite a bit to get a feel for the place and found the cemetery but a search of all the stones did not find Alesa's grandmother's (Dovie Dell Hulvey Smith).  Next time we will plan to spend a day at the Raleigh County courthouse in Beckley.  It seems our plans are to head back to Erie for a while before heading home.