Barns, Beans, and the Corn is looking good

  So, after you pass the Golden Domed WV State Capitol Building in Charleston WV. you follow I-64 over a little way past Nitro WV and pick up another one of my favorite roads.
  Actually for years it was one of my most feared roads. In years past, US-35 was a very narrow 2 lane road that ran along the beautiful Kanawa River in WV. It has since been replaced in part by a new 4 lane divided highway and it bypasses some of the scariest part.
  When I first started driving Big Trucks, one of my first trips was along this route. I was new, I was nervous, and this road was bumper to bumper with Big Trucks who were in a a very big hurry. It was dark, and to top it off this part is very prone to dense fog as well. The road runs along the Kanawa River, and I mean on places it is RIGHT NEXT to the River, and there are places where it is clear the land is shifting, and looks like it may slide away any moment. When you were going along and would hit one of these area where the road had shifted and been patched over and over the truck would rock violently sometimes launching your beloved coffee cup across the cab, covering everything with the needed caffeine juice.
  It follows the river over to where you pass what used to be the biggest Ammunition Factories in the country, several chemical plants, and a few refineries, all constantly being serviced by huge River Barges that navigate the Kanawa, and Ohio Rivers carrying anything you possibly imagine that would fit into a barge. It's a bit distracting trying to drive, and watch the big barges, being constantly amaZed at how they could possibly make these huge rafts of barges go where they want them to go. How they negotiate the constantly twisting river course, the never ending bridges, and then slide them in and out of any number of huge River Locks that make navigation on the Inland River System possible, is always so interesting  to me.
  Once you cross the the big bridge in Point Pleasant which I think is named after Chuck Yeager of "The Right Stuff" fame, you follow US-35 diagonally across southern Ohio in what I always enjoy as "the parade of barns".
  As some may know I am a huge fan of barns. I guess is comes from working in the fields as a kid in Ohio. I just love looking at all the different barn designs, and some of them are huge. It's hard to believe how they could have possibly built these giant wood structures back in the days without cranes, man lifts, and structural steel. Many of these giant beasts were raised by hand, and held together with "post and tenon" joints which basically means they are held together by hand driven wooden pegs.
  From Southeastern Ohio, to where I am not in eastern Minnesota you are treated to expansive green plains of mile after mile of corn fields, followed by bean fields, that alternate like that across a half a doZen states.
  The barn designs change as you go depending on the brand of Immigrants who were settled in that area. It also changes depending on the amount of "snow load" the structures were expected to have to support. The farther north you go the steeper the pitch of the roofs, and often the rounder the roofs would be.
  All along this route you are driving thru the Ohio Valley where the dirt is real dirt, not red clay. The dirt is dark, nearly black, very fertile, and you can smell it, because it smells like real dirt should smell.
  The rivers flow slowly, and wind in craZy snake like routes. One such river is the Scioto River which is a shallow winding river I played in, and built Tom Sawyer type rafts to float on when I was a kid. Looking back now I realiZe it was probably very polluted and it's a wonder any of us are still alive after swimming in it and probably drinking from it too.
  So the barns are looking good, the corn is very tall, and the beans are looking great.
  More later about Michigan, and the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. And by the way......I am pretty sure I have entered "Indian Country".