Our odd geography

Has anyone else noticed that here in Huntington, West Virginia, that southern Ohio is north of us, eastern Kentucky is west of us and most of West Virginia is east of us?

I've wondered sometimes why Fort Gay does not bill itself as being as far west as West Virginia gets.

On the Ohio River, towboat pilots use "north" and "south" as synonyms for going upriver and going downriver. To go upriver is to head north. But between Huntington and Ironton, the Ohio flows south to north, so someone going south is really heading north.

Kind of like a road sign I once saw in Athens, Ohio, marking the directions of two U.S. routes. They were mounted on the same sign, and I have a black-and-white photo in my home archives. Anyway, the photo of the sign showed something like this:

<-- EAST 50 WEST -->
<-- WEST 33 EAST -->