Van Ness felt a gladness and wonder as he drove past the small isolated towns ... a certain interest, a yearning, because he sense they were places a person could disappear into. They felt like little naps you might never wake up from--you might throw a tire and hike to a gas station and stumble unexpectedly onto the rest of your life, the people who would finally mean something to you, a woman, an immortal friend, a saving fellowship...
- Denis Johnson Already Dead
A trip to Thomas, West Virginia, is as much a journey as it is a destination. To get there requires a drive along meandering country roads nestled in the Appalachia past beautiful vistas and the quiet woosh of wind farms. But just because the journey is a beautiful one doesn't mean the destination is any less appealing.
The town is small, barely fifty people I'd wager. I spent one night there and saw the same locals working at the one bar as I did working at the one breakfast place. The epicenter of Thomas is the Purple Fiddle, a mecca in the folk music world where aspiring (and established) musicians go to cut their teeth or reacquaint themselves with their roots. The beer at the Purple Fiddle is brewed up the street at the local microbrew, and the staff that works at the bar (and the breakfast place, the Flying Pig) also run the art gallery down the street and the hostel next door where you can hang out after hours with any of the bands that happen to play the night you're there.
When my friend and I moseyed into the town we found the Purple Fiddle's owner rearranging chairs for a benefit concert put on by some adoring and willing bands. The Purple Fiddle has had some bad luck in the past year ("Never buy a 100 year old building," the owner John advised), and bands and locals had poured in to keep the 9 year old institution afloat.
The Spring Standards played, I drank with new friends and passed away a night thinking this was the sort of place I could disappear into, if only for a night.
(Day trips from Washington, DC)
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