I'm back! Sorry for the delay, but the universe conspired to make me insanely busy and traveling for a wedding. I swear it's not because I have this deep-seated anxiety that causes me to never finish anything I start. Promise. Anyway, this week we're looking at West Virginia!

The state: West Virginia
The song: "The Green Rolling Hills of West Virginia" by Utah Phillips, as performed by Emmylou Harris

In my humble opinion you can't really go wrong with Emmylou Harris, but the only reason I went with her was because I couldn't find an embeddable version of the original. If you like the tune, do yourself a favor and track down the original by Utah Phillips himself; it's great. Re: West Virginia, I've never been. And to be honest, it doesn't have a lot of appeal. Every time I hear West Virginia, I think of "The Wild and Wonderful Whites," and a shudder goes down my spine. Now I know they're probably not representative of even a minority of West Virginians, but they're there. Somewhere. And that scares me.

But there's more to West Virginia than its backwoods hill folk, like caving, hiking, fishing, whitewater rafting, and even skiing. And coal. Lots and lots of coal.

West Virginia gets bagged on sometimes for being too Southern-Fried, but the fact is West Virginia only exists because they were so pissed at Virginia joining the Confederacy that they split off to form their own state and rejoined the union. Credit where credit's due; no one else seceded from a Confederate state. 

Let us know why we should come visit your state, West Virginians. Maybe we can all pack up and make a road trip out there.

Runner-Up: "Country Roads" by John Denver
Most Laughable Suggestion: "West Virginia Fantasies" by Chicago

Flickr photo Untitled by Ryan used under a Creative Commons License.