It is late October, my third trip to West Virginia. The leaves blast gold and red, a changed landscape, but the road is the same twisting and untwisting like a wound-up top let loose. Around curves, 45 mph is the rule. Flying down, down the mountains, the two-lane road flings me into hollows then valleys. This is beautiful West Virginia—an endless unfolding of hollows and hills and verdant valleys.

Every few hours, I pull off the highway so Simba and I can stretch our legs, quench our thirst or nibble on some lunch. Four hours in, I take a sharp turn onto a small road just off State Route 55. A little further along, a dirt road turns into a meadow where I leave the car below and Simba races to the hill top where a splendid view opens to an endless expanse of rolling hills. I sit on the top for a bit admiring the sweet countryside, but alas, I am hemmed in by a timetable which includes two more hours of winding roads before darkness.

Voices of my new friends return as I get closer to Kumbrabow State Park, my destination, driving through the small towns I know—Elkins, Beverly, Mill Creek, Huttonsville. 

“Turn him loose,” Chris had said when I asked if the kids would be okay with the dog on our visit to Cheat Pond just one month ago. 

I pass Tabby’s trailer at the turn off for Kumbrabow State Park and see her Mom walking around the yard. 

By tomorrow, I will have new plans—people to photograph, stories to write—and uncertainties will fall by the wayside. I am sure.

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