YEAR THREE: B&O Railroad

It's been a few weeks since I took this trip. Since then, we've been to Philadelphia and back, are planning a move in May, and are preparing for Passover. Busy.

My plan since we moved here in July 2012 has been to visit one county per month, within three hundred miles. I missed January because I was sick half of the month, and in February, I waited to find a time when I had two days free, the weather would rise above freezing and it wouldn't be snowing. Those three things never happened. The first week in March we had a short stretch of decent weather, and that is when I took off.

Martinsburg is the county seat of Berkeley County. If you are on I-81, you drive south from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania to Hagerstown, Maryland, to Martinsburg, and then to Winchester, Virginia.

It's one hundred fifty miles from Morgantown to Martinsburg. I stayed one night free with points from our expensive stay in New York with the same chain.

Like much of this part of the world, the Civil War plays a major role in the town's history. One of the main landmarks in Martinsburg is the B&O Railroad Station, now restored. It was rebuilt after the Civil War. Confederate troops coming south from Antietam, just over the Potomac in Maryland, burnt it to the ground. The Union had pressured Berkeley County to join West Virginia and not secede, mostly because of the railroad. The Eastern Panhandle, as it is called here, is cut off from the rest of the state. To get from Morgantown, one drives eighty miles through Maryland before returning to West Virginia.

Martinsburg is a "boomberg," a term I picked up from Joe. He learned it from a professor of demography in rabbi school. It means somewhere far from a major city that is growing rapidly with commuters. In Martinsburg, the MARC, Washington's commuter train network, runs trains from Martinsburg. This has caused the county population to explode, unlike most of West Virginia, where the population is shrinking. There are new apartments and town homes springing up all around Martinsburg.

I spent the afternoon of my arrival looking at historic places in town. The next morning, I drove out into the countryside to look for more history. I came home that afternoon.

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Martinsburg Shops

Boyd Avenue Historic District, Martinsburg

Winchester Avenue, Boomtown Historic District, Martinsburg.

Burwell House, Ridgeway

Campbellton, Gerrardstown

This trip was a joke on me. Joe agreed to go with me to my next county, alphabetically: Bedford, Virginia. We were supposed to go Monday to Wednesday, November 17 to 19. Then I looked at the weather report. Tuesday, the day we would be touring, had a forecast high in Bedford of 24 F., with 21 mile per hour winds. And Monday and Wednesday we would be traveling over the mountains in West Virginia, where it would likely be snowing. So we didn't go. Monday night we stayed in Morgantown, saw the movie St. Vincent and then ate dinner at a Chinese buffet in University Town Center.

This weekend, the forecast was a high of 49 Saturday, with even warmer weather Sunday, but

rain all day. So, I thought I would go to then next county, Belmont County, Ohio, originally scheduled for December, on Saturday November 22. I didn't want to fall behind.

I took the back route across West Virginia 2 to New Martinsville. For some reason, although it was 32 when I left the house, the temperature got colder. Then it started to rain. And then there was ice all over the roads. An accident on the bridge across the Ohio River at New Martinsville held me up for a half hour. I was behind a truck salting the road on Ohio 7 heading up the river. I still didn't understand about the ice. I stopped at Dollar General in Powhatan Point to use the bathroom, check directions and buy a big bag of pretzels for a dollar.

I followed a back road, where I saw a car in a ditch. Then my car began to slide. That's when I got it. The car's gauge said it was 32 outside. I drove slowly after that. Southwestern Belmont County is mountainous, like West Virginia. It's dotted with well pads and access roads from fracking, disturbing the landscape. I hadn't gotten to my first historic place in the town of Belmont by 12:45. This man doesn't live on pretzels alone, so I continued on OH 9, instead of turning off to Belmont, to St. Clairsville, where I knew there was a mall off I-70. I knew I could get a cheap and fast lunch at the mall. I had a slice of pizza, a small salad, and a diet Pepsi. Coming out, I could see that the traffic heading back to St. Clairsville was backed up. I decided to go back to the Ohio River and visit the old town of Bellaire.

I was on I-470 in Ohio, the bypass around Wheeling, West Virginia. Traffic stopped dead for a half hour. I saw trucks stalled on the road for no apparent reason. I thought maybe there was some kind of trucker strike, like last year. A Pittsburgh radio station talked about how traffic was stopped all over the region. Apparently, it was because of ice on the roads.

I finally reached Bellaire, stopping at a Dairy Queen for an ice cream and another bathroom. I tried to get Mapquest on my phone, but typically, I couldn't get internet service on my useless Samsung Galaxy S4 with Sprint service, when it works. I had written the addresses of the five historic places in town. I found two. My research found that once upon a time there were three synagogues in this town. The 1920 census showed 15, 061 people in Bellaire. In 2010, there were 4, 278. This is what the rust belt looks like.

I had planned to be out six hours, three to drive both ways and three to explore. With all the traffic problems, the only place I really got to look at was Bellaire.

The joke on me was that Sunday was much warmer, and there was no rain. If I were into magical thinking, I would say I was punished for ditching Torah study Saturday morning to go exploring.

Here are some pictures from Bellaire, Ohio, Saturday, November 22, 2014, between 2;30 and 3:45 P.M. The temperature was around 45 F., and there was an on-and-off drizzle under cloudy skies.