Monday, June 27, 2011

Ed's West Virginia Roadtrip in his New A5 Audi -- Sutton, WVA

Beside the County Clerk's Office, Sutton, WVA.


A Face Even a Mother Could not Love!



Hudson nash Next to Court Housse, Sutton, WVA.





Reopened theater, Sutton, WVA.






Main Street, Sutton, WVA.









The Audi A5 proved to be an excellent performer on both the really fine Interstates in West Virginia but also on the twisty backroads with their "S" curves. Quattro hugged the curves like glue. I now know why we increasingly are seeing so many car magazines using West Virginia's senic highways and by-ways for featured test drives. We drove into the little town of Sutton that once was a thriving small town with three new car dealerships and an economy based on the timber and logging industry. No more, as Sutton, like many small towns off the beaten path in West Virginia is, if not quite a ghost town, at least a town where time seems to have slowed to a snails pace of a bygone time. A town caught in a time warp.

Looking down Main Street one sees mostly empty shells of once finely crafted detailed buildings. Stepping into the country courthouse right off of Main Street we noticed a large framed photograph beside the Country Clerk's office that was titled "The Presidents of the United States." The president's photographs stopped with Lyndon Baines Johnson. Or perhaps that's the time when federal monies were coming in big time to help this impoverished state. Right next to the Courthouse was a vacant, largely unkept yard where a sad and battered 1957 Hudson "Hash" was parked bearing a face that only a mother could love.

But the kicker came when we walked to the end of Main Street and saw the marque on the long closed movie theater, now reopened on weekends for limited times and currently showing the film "Cars 2." My first thought was "maybe there is a future for Sutton, West Virginia." Everybody loves cars, even in a town where there is little to do and where time seems to have stood still.

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