i hit the hills and i hit the extraction industries.
or whats left of them.
a down on its luck population and rusting dinosaurs.
west virginia
via the ohio river in steubenville.
i hit the hills then i hit steubenville.
it was a friday.
near on ten pm and the natives were getting restless.
i crossed the ohio in the dark,
near dark,
except for a hulking, iron monster lighting up the river and the surrounding hillsides.
I found shelter on a ridge heavily criss crossed by ORV trails and bedded down for the night to the low hum of a steel factory.
all night:
bells and whistles...
steam and smoke...
grumbly announcements made over ancient loudspeakers...
pings and horns ricocheting off the surrounding hills.
and ever thirty minutes flames would race to the heavens illuminating everything around me like a scene out of a war movie.
bright enough to read...
bright enough to be spotted in my clandestine camp spot...
bright enough to wake me and send my head spinning in even more confused circles as to what the hell is going on.
the morning greeted me sleepily but intact.
the daylight view was even more stunning than the previous night.
up and down the banks of the ohio river were factories, mills, furnaces...
all silent.
all shuttered and rusting back into the earth
all but the one i had camped above the night before.
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