Just to tired last night after 4 hours of dancing, to sit down and write anything, at least coherently anyway. Still tired today, but that is pretty much my own fault for getting up to early this morning and then not taking a good nap this afternoon.

    Getting back to yesterday a bit though; I met up with a friend of mine early in the morning and we headed for the town of Bleckly, WV, just south of Fayetteville. We were on a mission to go see the local coal mining museum they have there in town. Set on the site of an actual old time coal mine we got there just in time to be loaded onto a two car mining tram and transported inside the old mine. Of course it wasn't exactly like it had been when the mine was operating, for one thing they had come in and raised the roof from the basic 30" tall tunnel to one that was at least 8' tall. But the tour was lead by a 40 year veteran of the coal mines who was just a hoot with his down home way of speaking and his back country accent. He told us about mining in tunnels which were no higher than the 28"-30" seam of coal they were after and how you could make $0.20 for every ton of coal you could load into a 1-ton tram, and how most guys could load maybe 10 tons in any one day. He also talked about those 'mighty fine' carbide lamps they had and the canaries they actually all carried around with them at all times. Yes it's true, they did actually use canaries in the coal mines during that early period. And 'mighty fine' canaries they were too.

    A look at some of the techniques they used to mine coal and some of the tools they used before finishing up the tour by coming back outside into the sunshine and fresh air. Oh how glad I am that I never had to make the choice to go into a mine or not.

   They also had several miners houses of several types and sizes based on whether you were single or married and how many kids you had. Then of course they also had the superintendents home. Quite a difference of course.

     So a couple of hours there and it was soon time for lunch. We headed back to Fayetteville and one of my favorite places to eat 'Pies and Pints'. We ordered a pitcher of a nice golden amber beer, a Greek salad to share and a pizza featuring steak and mushrooms. Wonderful, wonderful food and drink and lots of pleasant conversation to go along with it.

    After lunch we took a short drive over to the far side of the New River gorge and drove to the bottom and crossed the river on the bridge down there. A nice drive up this side and then it was time to split for a while. I came back to the trailer and took a nice long nap before getting ready for the dance last night.

    Two bands and two callers performing this weekend of course. The local band, The Contrarians was up first and they were just wonderful. I have been listening to these guys for 3 years now and they are just getting better and better. Last night they were just hot with lots of standard tunes played in very un-standard ways. Lots of blues and rock influence with the use of the sax and trumpet and some really mean fiddling. Calling for that session was by Shawn and she did some really fun mixes.

    The 2nd half brought up Perpetual e-Motion with Gaye doing the calling. What had started out to be a fun dance just got better and better as the night went on. By midnight when it finally all came to an end we were all just exhausted. Just enough oomph to get in the truck and make it back to the trailer for a couple of ibuprofen and some much needed sleep.

    Should of slept in really late this morning but instead I was up at 7:00 and taking a shower in the cold of the morning. I met up with another friend out at the park where the dance is and we headed for Babcock State Park in order to go see the grist mill that is there and to do some hiking. This is the same mill as the one I was at the other day, but I wanted a couple more pictures of it and I found the lighting of it in the morning made it look a lot different. We wandered around the mill for a while and watched the water wheel turn, but they weren't actually grinding today as there was something going on with a piece of the mechanism. Still really beautiful there though.

    We walked up what we thought was one of the park trails headed for what I thought was this lake they have there in the park. But it turned out that we were just on some kind of access road there. So we put in several miles, most all of it in an uphill direction. At least an hour and a half of steady walking with no real resting along the way. We met a couple guys hunting turkeys up in the woods and they agreed to give us a ride back down to the parking lot as we were both feeling a need for some lunch and some water.

     A short drive back to Fayetteville and we ended up once again at Pies and Pints. This time it was spinach salad and a half-n-half pizza have pineapple and bacon and cilantro and jalapenos on it, among other things. Yum!

    Headed back out to the park and danced a couple of dances this afternoon. But mostly I just sat in the sun reading a magazine and trying not to snore while snoozing. So now it's time to get back on the road and get the heck back to the park for this evening's entertainment. Will try to write more tomorrow.