Uniroyal Gal's Hindu cousin?
In the 1960s, a Hindu teacher by the name of A.C. Prabhupada was the founder of the Hare Krishna Movement. His mission was to spread the word of his guru, Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura, throughout the world. After opening Krishna centers in New York and San Francisco, he set his sights on an unlikely location: the mountainous West Virginia panhandle. In 1968, The New Vrindaban Community was founded near Moundsville, West Virginia to fulfill Prabhupada's dream of an ideal society based on Krishna Consciousness, or love of God. His followers overcame obstacles (and won over initially scornful locals) and turned a hardscrabble farm into their dream community. In 1973, the devotees built a grand home for Prabhupada, where he could write books and enjoy the mountain air on his occasional visits. This is known as the Palace of Gold, and you don't have to be a Krishna devotee to visit and marvel at its splendor. After a long, windy, mountain road ride off the Interstate through the beautiful West Virginia country side, there it is in all its incongruous beauty. The inside rooms are even more spectacular than the outside but they didn't allow pictures as our blissfully peaceful tour guide (and Moby lookalike) earnestly showed us around. And if you visit, just keep repeating: "there's no place like om, there's no place like om."
