I altered my itinerary for today. I didn't want to backtrack on the uninteresting highway between Huntington and Portsmouth. In making the changes, I ended up on winding, hilly, narrow roads with lots more trees than the major highways.
Just a few miles back into Ohio, I branched off the main highway onto Rd. 650 through Pine Grove and eventually took Rd. 522 back to the main highway. This route took me through Dean Forest as well as through pure Appalachia with scattered homes (many mobile homes and some with trash piles in the yards) of mostly poor people. Just a few miles up the main road, I branched off again on Rd. 335 and then Bonser Run Rd. which took me to Rd. 139. Just a few miles north from there, I turned onto Rd. 159 (Houston Hollow-Long Run Rd.) which took me to US 23. This whole route was fascinating. There were actually trees slightly more colorful along it than I had seen yesterday, but the routes were nice because of the forests along them and interesting because of the backwoods nature of the communities/residences along the way.
After a while on US 23, I turned east on Hwys. 32 and 124--a detour to the east to see one of the top roads in Ohio. After a few miles, I another rural County Rd. 23 (not the same as US 23 mentioned before) through Elm Grove and Arkoe to reach Hwy 302 White Oak Hill Rd. (also above), an unpaved road twisting and winding up a hill until it reached Hwy 1. It is the best road I have traveled so far on the trip.
Returning through Arkoe to Hwy 32, I turned westward and headed to Athens. This is the Appalachian Trail Highway I said was uninteresting yesterday. But the section of US 32 between US 23 and the town of Jackson is very beautiful. It is a 4-lane highway that has woods up to its edges and that twists and winds through the hills.
Athens was a pleasant surprise. I had originally intended to stay there overnight, but finding few decent hotels there and discovering that Marietta is a Top Town in Ohio, I decided to book in Marietta. But I arrived in Athens just during lunch hour. It is a nice town with Ohio University and the downtown (called Uptown) district abutting each other--just across the street from one another. I parked the car to the opposite edge of the downtown district, walked down the main street, and then wandered through the nice university campus watching a beehive of activity with students and professors leaving classes, going to lunch, etc. I noted a sign where someone had named the town the best small college town in the country. I can see why. I didn't see a single empty storefront downtown, and there were all the special types of places that make a town more livable--a theater showing foreign and independent films, coffee shops, restaurants, etc., with almost all of them being locally owned and operated rather than chains.
Marietta is truly a nice town. On the riverfront where the Muskingum River runs into the Ohio River (which places it across the river from West Virginia with the nearest big town there being Parkerburg), it has a large, old downtown area. Riverboats used to dock here regularly, and there are wonderful old downtown buildings and churches and blocks and blocks of nice, large, old homes. I walked up and down the downtown streets and drove up and down the others. I found a wonderful old Jewish bakery and Middle Eastern restaurant (closed on Monday!). And I explored the Marietta College campus.
It was a battle deciding where to stay in town between two hotels that were among the highest rated in town--the 100+ year-old Lafayette Hotel downtown and the Microtel out on the edge of town. Although the Lafayette said they had free parking, I questioned how simple parking there would be since it is downtown. (I now know they have their own lot.) The Lafayette did not include breakfast, and the Microtel, was a few dollars cheaper WITH breakfast and had a higher rating. However, after seeing inside the Lafayette Hotel today, I can see that staying there would have been a special experience.
I researched local restaurants and decided on The Original Pizza Place, a restaurant that is highly rated and has lots of great reviews from people who always go there when passing through town. They make New York-style pizza by the slice meaning that the pieces are thin with lots of cheese and have a browned crust. They are just like what you get at NYC places where you buy by the slice at a window except here you can eat inside. I got a piece of cheese and a piece of cheese/pepperoni. Both were great.
As noted above, the trees in the areas I traveled today were nicer than the ones I saw yesterday. It still is not a good autumn (nothing like the photo I posted above), but I saw a number of red and orange-turning-brown trees among the others. It really felt like traveling through the forests during the autumn.
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