While I have been based out of Athens, Ohio for the last week and a half and have slept in the same campsite the whole time, I have been out and about exploring Athens County which has been really awesome. While it is time for me to get moving again as I want to see the rest of Ohio and Michigan before summer turns to fall, it has been nice to spend some time here and get caught up a little bit before pressing on. While I am leap-frogging over Kentucky to get here, I hope to return there in the fall when the leaves are changing and I can have a really good look around.
Coming into Athens County, with its rolling hills and coal mining history, it is definitely good to be back in Appalachia. I've spent a lot of time in Appalachia over the last few months, so this makes for a nice transition into the Midwest. Having seen dramatic differences between the Smoky Mountains in East Tennessee and the Mississippi River floodplains in West Tennessee and between coastal South Carolina and the Upcountry, I am prepared for the differences I expect to see between this Ohio and the Ohio on Lake Erie. And I'm looking forward to it.
I first met Will Drury at the corner of a bar in the middle of a parking lot on the edge of an island in the middle of the Caribbean. The bar was Duffy's, an institution in Red Hook on the east end of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Will had arrived that day to take over management of Duffy's and I was a regular there. Duffy's was right down the hill from my apartment and I didn't even have to cross the street to get there. I liked Duffy's because the clientele was a good balance of locals and tourists. While most people who lived on the island tried their hardest to avoid the tourists during their down-time, I loved interacting with them. It was great to welcome them to our little island and help them with their plans, and I never tired of their enthusiasm…
The southeastern corner of Athens County, Ohio sits right across the Ohio River from West Virginia, making it a perfect transition as I begin my month-long exploration of the Buckeye State. While the city of Athens is home to Ohio University and exhibits all of the best qualities of a quintessential college town, you don’t have to drive far before it becomes clear you are definitely still in Appalachia. As I drove the back roads and explored the history and culture of the area, I found it both new and familiar at the same time. The history of Athens County is fascinating, and in this post I’d like to tell you all about it through six stops I made as I visited the region.
If you've been following my travels, you know how much respect I have for traditional arts and crafts. In an era of mass-produced crafts imported from China and sold at every Pier One and Crate & Barrel, I consider myself very fortunate to stumble across someone using traditional methods to produce hand-crafted items. When I was introduced to Sarah Brown this past weekend as someone doing traditional letterpress printing, I knew I had to find out more. Sarah and I sat down to discuss her craft and some of the projects she's been working on. The more I learned, the more fascinated I became with the process and the more respect I had for the patience required to create these products.
