Photo of WV road by http://www.forestwander.com/
The iconic song “Country Roads” by John Denver has a special meaning to both of us. This is due to the song intersecting both of our lives multiple times spanning a time period of over thirty years. Dating back to before we ever met.
For me the date was June 1984, I was living in New Jersey. I get a copy of a photographic magazine. Inside I find an article about cave photography. Intrigued, I reread the article several times. I kept thinking about the article and I sent a letter requesting more information. A few weeks later I get a standard information packet from the national cave organization. It was nice but it did not give me any local contacts. Fast forward a year to 1985, I get a letter from a local cave club in New Jersey. I called them and started going with them to explore some wild caves. All this time they talked in glowing term of the BIG CAVES in West Virginia. Finally, they formed a trip to Lewisburg WV. On the 8 hour trip down they played Country Roads over and over. When our vehicle crossed the state line, I started to understand. The more time I spent in WV the harder it was to leave. My heart was so sad when I crossed the line to head back to New Jersey. I never forgot my time in West Virginia, I went on several more trips there. Each time I fell more deeply in love with that special place.
That same year Michelle was in basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey and took a field trip to Fort Monmouth, which was only 4 miles from my house. That was her first time that far away from her WV home she loved. It was her first time in NJ, but not her last....
In 1998, I went on a Christian Dating site, a few days later Michelle wrote me. We talked and I found out she lived in Lewisburg, WV. I told her I was there in 1985 caving, she was not impressed. We talked, fell in love and I drove down to meet her face to face. We got married later that year, and she moved to New Jersey, we lived there for 8 years. But her heart was in a place south of New Jersey, in those sweet mountains of West Virginia. For me the tug to move to WV kept getting stronger. We played "County Roads" to death on our CD player as we both dreamed of some day returning to WV. When we were doing the final part of the remodeling in the condo before the big move we made a CD of WV songs. Different versions of "Country Roads" was on it. That CD is what kept us going when we just wanted to give up.
In 2006 we moved to Kingwood, WV and never looked back. We live on a farm high in the mountains. Life is hard here, but we love it. This is where those country roads took us home. To the place our heart will always belong......
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