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Vacation is long over and it’s been back to the grind time.
Suffice it to say my football visits have been anything but normal this year.
A week ago Friday it was a trip to Spencer to visit Roane County and head football coach Paul Burdette’s Raiders.
Although the trip over was fine and dandy, things got a little hairy on the way back to Elizabeth on West Virginia 14.
First, there was the random deer just chilling a couple feet from the road, but it stood its ground.
Then, somewhere before Reedy the storms were starting to brew in the distance and I had to come to a near complete stop after three fawns were along my side of the road.
Not long after getting back into Wirt County there was a tree down on the other side of the road and things got a little dicey the rest of the way, which included a short pit stop in Elizabeth because the storm was massive.
Onward to Monday it was and that turned into quite a little adventure.
It was my annual Parkersburg to Elizabeth to Glenville to Mt. Zion back to Glenville and then finally returning to Parkersburg trek.
All was smooth sailing after getting to Glenville to check in on the Pioneers of first-year head coach Jake Casteel and the soon to be completed new look Morris Stadium.
Upon getting back to Grantsville it was time to head to Mt. Zion to visit Jeff Goodrich and the Red Devils.
Luckily, I managed to get pictures and interviews done before a massive storm hit.
After leaving the school and planning to work my way back to Glenville, the weather was too rough so I pulled over and waited it out for a few.
Finally, figuring it was good to go, I headed out only to come across a tree that had fallen across the road a few miles later from atop a hill.
As luck would have it a good-hearted fellow was already out with his tractor and chainsaw. It wasn’t long before he had one side of the road “cleared” and traffic was able to continue.
I rolled down my window and thanked him as I went by.
Driving the last few miles into Grantsville looked like a bomb had gone off as various trees were down along either side of the road and debris was everywhere, but I finally made it back to Glenville to check in with the Titans of Gilmer County boss Tommy Hamric.
The good news was the trip back to Wood County was mundane and I was looking forward to going over and seeing Parkersburg head man Matt Kimes on Wednesday evening after practice.
I opened the locker room door, strolled in and all the coaches were in the office talking.
As soon as I walked in I was like ‘yeah, this is what a locker room should smell like,’ so my first question to Kimes was ‘are you getting anything done because it sure does smell like it?'”
He laughed and replied “it’s always the summer locker room smell.
“You know it’s the dog days when you can walk in and it smells like just dudes been sweating all day.”
Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com