We left Columbus feeling elated that we finally had a proper maybe. So many places we’d been to were very lovely and friendly, but we couldn’t see ourselves there for various reasons (too small, too remote, no jobs, etc). We journeyed on through the rest of the eastern portion of the states and crossed another state line.
I’d never previously realized that a tiny bit of West Virginia sticks up in between Ohio and Pennsylvania. I suppose if I thought about it, I might have figured it out, but I definitely hadn’t internalized it. As a result, we needed to go through West Virginia to continue on to Pennsylvania. This was more interesting than I had expected. Ohio feels very Midwestern for the most part. It’s has some hills and forests, but it also has loads of farm land and strong Middle America accents (in that sense, neutral from many people’s point of view). As soon as we crossed into West Virginia, that all changed. The landscape became hilly as we were entering the outskirts of the Appalachians. The houses looked very different and the accents definitely changed.
We spoke to a lovely woman and her adult daughter when we were trying to see if a Ukrainian church was open (because how often do you find Ukrainian churches in West Virginia). It wasn’t, but they were extremely open and friendly. They told us loads of information and opinions about living in West Virginia and the nature of price changes across the country. She told us that though rents were lower in West Virginia than where he son lived in Nashville, the Kroger, a regional grocery store chain, had the same ads and prices in a small town in West Virginia as it did in a big one in Tennessee.
Have a look at the video: