Travels WithJohn and Janice

Travel blog

Every trip we've shared since 2011—filter by where we went, when we traveled, or what we explored.

Showing 2 of 236 posts

Blackwater Falls, a sixty-two-foot cascade in West VirginiaUnited States
5 min read2019

Dateline July 12, 2019, Blackwater Falls and Hershey

From the West Virginia highlands we hiked to Blackwater Falls in its morning sun and out the muddy mile to Lindy Point, then took the back roads north to Hershey. We played the West Course in the shadow of the chocolate factory, where Byron Nelson won his first PGA Championship in 1940, and spent our first Harvest Host night at a farm winery and brewery, with a Friday band and the Gellatly family's story.

#West Virginia#Pennsylvania#Blackwater Falls
Read story
The Slab Fork headquarters building at the Exhibition Coal MineUnited States
6 min read2019

Dateline July 10, 2019, Beckley and the Coal Mine

Having loved the Soudan mine last year, we went down into the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine in West Virginia, riding the mantrip five hundred feet in behind a guide who spent twenty years underground. He showed us the thirty-inch seams worked on hands and knees, the rats that meant the air was safe, and twenty cents a ton for a brutal day's labor. Above ground, a whole company town, homes, church, school, and the store that kept a man in debt, told the rest of the story.

#West Virginia#Beckley#Coal Mining
Read story