Do not be fooled. The ride from Huntington, West Virginia to Syracuse, Meigs County, OH does NOT follow the Dueling Banjo route. There is no such thing as the Dueling Banjo route, and just because that particular tune plays repetitively in your head from the time you get off the interstate until the time you find a semi-main rode two and a half hours later, it doesn’t change that fact.

All I do know is that the entire trip made the town of 2500 where I grew up seem downright cosmopolitan.

Frankly I’m glad I took the route that is not the Dueling Banjo route. Because if I hadn’t taken that route, I wouldn’t have gotten to experience what immediately became my favorite town in all of the United States.

Athalia, OH, you are being honored.

Tiny…

Apparently poverty stricken…

Ah… reminds me of my youth.

Anyway, in the mile it took to get through it, I saw three of the coolest things thus far.

1. Someone apparently harbored a serious affection for their car and a wicked sense of humor, because in the front yard of one scrappy mobile home, there was an old Ford Bronco half-buried, face first. It wasn’t an accident. There was landscaping.

2. A big sign of Jesus, right by the side of the road (and when I say right by the side of the road, I mean, we are lucky we didn’t take off Jesus’ hand). He was open-armed and greeting me… which was sweet. Of course, if I had been heavily drinking and driven past, Jesus might very well have caused me to wreck my car or, at the very least, piss myself.

3. Not far down from Jesus, there was a house, and at that house, there were two little girls, maybe seven or eight years old, who were apparently transplants from the 60s, sitting in a front yard, throwing peace signs at passing cars.

It did me in.

You rock my socks, Athalia.

P.S. It was at this point that I realized I should probably face the rest of this journey with the camera at the ready.