A tour of Beckley
My friend
came to visit me last week and I took her on a tour of Beckley and this is where we went. She was very impressed with all the things Beckley had to offer.Tudor’s Biscuit World
Tudor’s is basically the West Virginia equivalent of a preferred -berto’s taco shop (San Diego thing), where if you go off to live somewhere else, Tudor’s is the first place you want to eat*. It is illegal to visit WV and not go to Tudor’s. You can get all sorts of things on a biscuit. I always get the Miner, which is hash browns, liquid cheese, and bacon on a biscuit, and Sunny got the Mary B, which is egg, hash browns, bacon, and plastic cheese. Tudor’s is always filled with old people.
*Scott does not like Tudor’s. He claims the biscuit-to-filling ratio is off. He is wrong.
TJ Maxx
Our TJ Maxx is impressive. The clothing selection is just OK but the beauty and home goods sections are A+.
Rural King
Rural King is at the Crossroads Mall, which is your typical indoors mall with a Victoria’s Secret, Spencers, et al. The mall is generally depressing but Rural King is a place of life. It is like a Walmart but just for rural stuff, like tractors and deer hunting stuff and vaccine equipment for your farm animals and t-shirts about America and Jesus. You can look at baby chickens and rabbits and buy big bags of candy and beef jerky and Carhartt products. They give out free popcorn and coffee and the cashiers are always really nice. Examples of what you can buy: Sunny got some work gloves; I got 2 cans of wasp spray ($3) and a refill for my mosquito repellant device.
Sheetz
Regional gas station with a large array of beverage and food options. Sheetz is great and always my preferred stop on road trips. Similar to Wawa.
Classy Clutter
Classy Clutter is an antique store that used to be filled with creepy crap but is now more curated. They have a lot of really nice old furniture for low low prices. You can also buy things like an anatomically-correct baby doll for $2 (it had a vulva).
Donut Connection
Extremely excellent doughnut store that seems to exclusively employ felons (who are nice and good at their jobs). They used to be open 24/7 but now close at 7 and it’s a tragedy.
Hickory Tree Antique Mall
Lots of strange treasures for not much money. There are many different smells in this store, some pleasant, some unpleasant. I like the man who operates it, who is vaguely goth. Things I typically buy from this store: religious paraphernalia, old photos and magazines, kitchen stuff, little knick-knacks. I also bought my super cool bedside lamp there.
Tamarack
Tamarack is a glorified rest stop that has a cafeteria inside it, an ice cream shop, a coffee shop, and lots of West Virginia-made gifts. You can get our famous breakable objects, Fiestaware and Blenko glass. You can also sometimes see people making their crafts. Sunny got a t-shirt from Kinship Goods with the mothman on it.
Driving tour of downtown
Downtown is very cute and it looks like 1938 but there are a lot of scary people there. We also went by Scary Sheetz. I did not name it that; the police told me its name when I did a ride-along for a Vice article. Scary Sheetz had nothing scary going on when we drove by which was disappointing.
Ship Rock trail
Ship Rock is part of a trail system behind the YMCA sports field and track. It’s gorgeous and short and there are a lot of ghost pipes there. At the track, there is a giant puddle with a lot of frogs in it. This time, it was full of tadpoles.
Cemetery
I thought we were going to the old one but I got them mixed up. This one is right next to the track. There are a lot of old graves but some new ones too.
Dinner. We also went out to dinner but it was a very bad experience and I don’t want to talk about it.
This is only a day’s worth of Beckley attractions, focused on shopping because that’s what Sunny wanted to do. We have many days of activities here. Beckley is a world-class tourist destination.
But seriously I love Beckley. You aren’t supposed to love Beckley. You’re supposed to hate it and talk about how awful it is. I mean, it is awful, but mostly it is wonderful. It’s charming and bizarre and interesting and wears life on its sleeve. Plus look at all the cool shit! We didn’t even go on any of the million other nature walks, go to the coal mine museum, get cold pressed juice, etc.
also happy first birthday to my substack. I have been failing at the prophecy element of this substack and I will try to do better.
Dope. This is one of the best substacks.
ghost pipes