Pt. Pleasant, WV - Part II

Early last week, we took a couple of days off to drive to Virginia. My niece and nephews needed a ride back home after a busy summer shuttling around between Florida, Indiana, and many places in between visiting family.





We left fairly early on Monday morning, July 30th, as you can see.




It is about a 9 hour drive (with stops), and we kept up a pretty consistent clip through Ohio. But there was a reason for this.



Nancy and I wanted to stop in Point Pleasant, WV, and check out the infamous Mothman. This area also has an extraordinarily rich history of alleged UFO phenomenon. I say alleged not because I doubt the reports of the people who say they saw them. But simply because we didn't see any and, well, best to err on the side of skepticism in order to maintain our thin veneer of respectability.

We stopped in at this little cafe' which, if local legend holds true, was the inspiration for the cafe in the movie, The Mothman Prophecies, starring Richard Gere. Turns out the movie was actually shot somewhere in Pennsylvania, but they did use a lot of the Point Pleasant townfolk as extras. The movie gets a lot of the facts of the story wrong, too, but it is still pretty entertaining.




Here we are dining in said cafe'. I had the "Big Ed", which was basically a big hamburger. There was no sign of the actual Mothman.

Then we went to the place where the eastern entrance to the Silver Bridge used to be. This is the great tragedy that marked the end of the sightings of the Mothman and the UFO activity. Many people believe that all of these events are inextricably, but unexplainably, related.

The Silver Bridge used to run parallel to the old railroad bridge that you can see in this picture.

This picture seems to demonstrate that the residual power of the Mothman consists mainly of making men look older, balder, and fatter than they actually are in real life. Curse you, Mothman!

We had a great trip to Virginia, a fun quick visit with loved ones, and then a pleasant leasurely trip home.