Almost heaven

Yes, I know that the song was written about western Virginia, but I live in West Virginia and they long ago adopted the song as their own. *insert your own West Virginia joke here*

This is the road we drive twice a day. (Technically, Tom drives most of the time, but I'm in the car. Usually.) This is on the West Virginia side. The Virginia side is beautiful too, but the road's too narrow and even curvier, so it just isn't safe to stop for casual photos.

There's one spot, the last sharp curve, on the way down the mountain (where our XM radio always cuts out) that has the most beautiful rock formations that are going to come crashing down at any second, so I wanted to get some photos before they did.

I can't remember what kind of rocks these are; shale, maybe? I'm too lazy, as usual, to look them up.

If you look closely, you can see where the WV Dept. of Transportation or roads or whatever goes to great pains to cover graffiti. Out here in the sticks we've got a lot of wanna-be artists, or at least idiots who want to deface natural beauty. As soon as graffiti appears, WV sends out people to spray-paint the rocks closer to their natural color than the white or day-glo pink that Homer used to declare his love of Juniebug 4ever.

From a car, it's a lot less noticeable, but any way I look at it, it's a lot nicer to see than the obscene graffiti on the Virginia side of the mountain.

I'd show you some pics, but I'm not willing to stand in the middle of a blind curve and take them.