A Grave Week

I was at the Grave Creek Burial Mound shortly after it opened. This site was particularly important to me, not only because there was historical documentation that Meriwether Lewis had been in that exact spot in 1803. It was important because it got me asking questions and suddenly reminded me how strange it was that not a single Native American had appeared in the journals thus far and for long after this entry. It sparked the question “what happened to them? Where did they go?” I was aware relocation and the Trail of Tears, but that was nearly 30 years after the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

The answer, as it often is, was that it was glossed over in U.S. History textbooks. We learned about the French and Indian War briefly, but when I learned that the colonies expanded into the Ohio River Valley, I never saw the implication that the Native Americans there were forced out. The Adena were not forced out. They pre-dated colonization by a few thousand years. The Adena were ancestors of the Shawnee, who inhabited most of the Ohio River Valley and even some of the Southeast. They were ancestors of the Shawnee, and there are mounds all over the Ohio River made by them and even older tribes. 

All this drove me to read about the Shawnee to learn about their history. So rather than giving you an essay on Tecumseh and the entire history of Shawnee-European relations, I’ll say this. The Shawnee allied with the British, who, pardon my harsh language, repeatedly used them and screwed them. They used them as a vandegard on more than one occasion under the illusion of fighting alongside them and barred them from the promise of protection inside their forts to let them be slaughtered. The French and Indian War ended, tribes allied with the British against the United States and it happened again! The United States won and the  frontier wars began over the territories in the Ohio River Valley Tecumseh, the leader of the Shawnee had united a number of tribes into an army to fight back, and they put up a hell of a fight before fragmenting and being pushed westward and into present day Oklahoma. What’s more, both Lewis and Clark fought in these wars. I find it fascinating knowing this history and knowing that George Drouillard, a hunter and translator for the expedition, was Shawnee through his mother. I’m excited to explore this in my novel.

I traveled down the scenic river road in West Virginia, the landscape cut up again by power plants, stopped on at the Texas Wagon Wheel for an unexpected break. I wound up chatting with the waitress there for a long while about my trip. She sent me off with a little solar powered charger when I mentioned my worry about how much power I had left. I crossed the river again into Ohio and chased the daylight, once again, convinced that I wasn’t going to find a campground before dark. I wound up at Leith Run in Wayne National Forest. It was beautiful, right up against the Ohio under a canopy of trees.

The next day I planned a stop in Marietta at lunchtime. After a struggle trying to find a bike-safe route I found there was a bike path hidden behind a strip mall and I had risked life and limb for nothing. Marietta is gorgeous, just City enough to find something to do, and with the familiar Historic brick facades that steal my heart! Despite my difficulty it seemed to bikeable. There was a paved bike path that took me directly to the Ohio River Museum where I explored the natural history and boat history of the river. I got a tour of an early 1900s steamboat and spoke with the guide about how one would navigate rapids or falls in a massive boat like that. He directed me to the Marietta Adventure Company for my bike repair and they tightened my cables and even wound up replacing one (I’ll never go to Dicks Sporting Goods again. They botched it), while I waited.

That night was the closest I’ve been to biking at night. I had trouble finding a campground and wound up at a completely deserted place where you drop your money in an envelope to pay. I most definitely was not allowed to camp there. It was self contained RV camping only, but I literally had nowhere else to go and chances it. I was convinced someone was going to wake me in the middle of the night and tell me to get the hell out, so I woke up first thing and bolted.

This was the end of my first week so I made plans to stop in Point Pleasant, WV and take a full day off. This did not go as planned. It wound up being a 66 mile ride to Point Pleasant, the furthest I’d gone in a day thus far. I was a few miles out from my campground. If you are squeamish please skip the next paragraph. It’s pretty traumatic.

I was biking uphill when I saw a dog notice me at the top. I’m carrying so much gear that I knew the dog was going to get to me whether I booked it or not. At first I thought it was chained as it started running…then maybe an invisible fence, but as I saw it bounding down three property lines along a culvert to beeline for me across a driveway, I realized I had to make a decision. I stopped, got off my bike and put it between me and the dog. I thought maybe traffic would notice me stop, and despite the fact that I was certain this pittbull was out for blood, I didn’t want it to get hit. Well, it leapt out into the street, a driver didn’t see it and ran over it right in front of me. I shrieked. I was frozen. The driver pulled over and another car drove over the dog. I was in shock, staring at this poor dog as it died, not sure how to feel as I’d have been seriously injured if it hadn’t been hit. The driver went in search of the owner, but no one was home. A neighbor came out and told us the dog was trouble, had been in and out of the pound four times and her owner didn’t take good care of her. Someone else stopped and pulled the dog out of the road. I saw a police officer and waved him down to tell him what had happened, and finally recovered enough from my shock to keep going to my campground.

I had learned at this point to search for tent campground or primitive campground so I would be sure I could actually stay where I planned, but when I got there and tried to get a Site the woman told me tent camping was closed due to mud and town ordinances wouldn’t allow me to stay there. I left her office, called my mom and the weight of the day hit me. I began sobbing. The closest campground was another 10 miles away and I couldn’t do it. I was shaking. I begrudgingly booked a hotel through a last minute hotel app, but I hit a point where it wanted me to bike on a highway across a bridge. The shock had me completely overwhelmed by the sound of cars, feeling them whiz by me like they didn’t see me. I felt terrified. Once again I called my mom. I’d already paid for a hotel that I couldn’t get to and it was nonrefundable. Not only that, there was only one hotel option on this side of the river and it was more than I felt comfortable paying. My mom talked me down. I reserved the hotel in Point Pleasant and headed back into town. The Historic Lowe Hotel is across the street from the Mothman statue and the Mothman Museum. The Mothman is a cryptid known for appearing in West Virginia with spooky connections with the supernatural. I got a vintage styled room, called a number of friends til I’d calmed my nerves a bit, and went out in search of food. I was pretty disappointed with my options so late in the day. I didn’t feel like Mexican food and I didn’t feel like getting back on my bike at all, so I wound up getting McDonald’s and sitting down with a beautiful view of a river sunset.

The next morning I decided I needed to get out of Point Pleasant, so it would be more half a day off than a full day. I couldn’t afford another night in that hotel, it just wasn’t in my budget, so I got a coffee and a Mothman cookie for breakfast, went to the Mothman Museum, and walked down the riverfront to explore the murals on the flood wall. I stumbled upon a house museum in a tiny state park and went inside, went back for a second cup of coffee and biked 18 miles to a campground outside of town.

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