Let me mention again how much I loooooove hotels, especially hotels like the one that I am in. And, yes, it is as lovely as it looks. The room itself is laid-out like your standard Hampton Inn/Comfort Inn, but the trappings are excellent. And they seem to really like pillows here. There are 11 on the bed, of various shapes and sizes. The staff could not be nicer, there is free wireless and a coffee bar in the lobby. For about $10 more than the generic hotels up the road. And, no, I'm not trying to sound like a commercial, but it is an enjoyable place to stay.
You can tell I don't get out much.
Apparently, this hotel is the place to be in Parkersburg. All of the lawyers congregate in the bar after work since we're right down from the courthouse/police dept/etc. Also in the lounge tonight was a young female film producer who had a bunch of actors parading through to sign contracts. I get the feeling that this is a large project, given the detail in the contracts, which I overheard because she read most of it aloud to said actors. I meant to catch her during a break and ask what the project was, but she never really had a break.
Then I struck out to find dinner, which I found, at a fairly non-descript Mexican place, which was just down the street from another fairly non-descript Mexican place. Who knew a small West Virginia town could support more than one Mexican eatery, much less two in a span of a mile. Both were hopping, tho, and staffed by actual Spanish speaking people. The food was only OK, sadly, but one can't have everything.
Getting a surprising amount done. Wandered about today and talked to some folks that I needed to talk to. Tomorrow, I dig into the death certificates and gather info on the city itself. I interviewed the County Commissioner today -- who I also am distantly related to -- and he gave me some great leads on where to find old pictures and the like. He also seems to be a Civil War buff and Parkerburg, like Knoxville, was a city that refused to take a side during the Civil War and housed both Union and Confederate troops. Parkersburg reminds me quite a bit of Knoxville -- it's a little smaller and has a more active downtown. Other than that, tho, it is strikingly simliar.
Apropos of nothing, a small chickadee/sparrow-like bird followed me through the Albany airport. Wonder if it could smell the trail mix in my bag. It pecked around me for a bit after I sat down, then went off to find someone with birdseed stuffed pockets. Just struck me as odd, to be followed by a bird in an airport. Wonder if there's one (or more) in each terminal, put there as conversation pieces.