Photo Walk: On our walk to the signature yesterday, we spotted a deer a short distance off the trail we were following. I wasn't able to get a good picture of it before it scampered off, but seeing it did give me the idea to go on a photo walk this morning in search of the elusive animal. Although I was unable to find one, I did take the opportunity to capture images of a few of the many varieties of mushrooms dotting the landscape of Glade Springs.
Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine & Youth Museum: About an hour after returning from my photo walk, I found myself, along with the rest of my family, at the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine. My parents had taken the tour of the coal mine located here on a previous trip to the area and wanted to share their experience with the rest of the family. While waiting for the tour to begin, we spent time looking over the displays on coal mining and the life of coal miners in the museum located just outside the mine.
Phillips-Sprague Mine: Once the tour was ready to begin, we boarded the man trip, the rail car that transports miners to the mine face, or the part of the mine actively being mined at the time. We made several stops during the underground tour, each set up with advancements in mining technology, starting with the most primitive. The technologies, as well as the trial and travails of the miners was explained by our tour guide, a retired coal miner. The tour lasted forty minutes after which we emerged back on the surface ready to tour the Coal Camp.
Coal Camp: Surrounding the coal mine adit are period buildings erected to give visitors a sense of how company coal miners lived. We had already visited The Rahall Company Store, were we purchased our tour tickets and spent time in the upstairs museum. Also within the coal camp was a Bachelor's Shanty, Superintendant's Home, Helen Coal Camp Store, Coal Company House, and the Pemberton Coal Camp Church. Each building was furnished appropriate to the time period, and the Superintendant's Home had upstairs rooms decorated as a barbershop, a doctor office and one as a post office, as well as an adult bedroom and children's bedroom. Guides were in a few of the buildings to give some historical context to the items and to answer questions.
Youth Museum: After our tour through the coal town, Peep and I went back around to all the buildings to get photos of the exteriors. By then, the rest of our large group had disappeared, but we assumed they had went into the Youth Museum. Admission was included with our mine tour price, but my dad had our tickets, so we had to talk our way in the front door. Once inside, we had difficulty finding them, but we eventually caught up to them working on puzzles in the interactive area of the museum. After spending some time with them, Peep and I toured the rest of the museum on our own, again losing my family in the process. We eventually caught up with Ben outside and waited for the rest to come out.
Introduction to the Horses: Back at the resort and bellies full from lunch, several of us boarded the minibus provided by the resort to shuttle guests from one area to another and made our way to the Equestrian Center. We had no plans to do any riding, but the staff there was quite nice in introducing us to some of the horses at the stables.
Becky's Dinner: This night, dinner belonged to my sister Becky and three of her kids. On the menu was chicken wings, pizza, french fries, tossed salad, watermelon balls and cookies and ice cream for desert. She had to scrounge around for enough cookware and managed, miraculously, to get everything that needed to go into the oven, into the oven. However, with so much food the cooking time was significantly increased. She definitely could have made very good use of a second, or even a third, stove and the cookware to match.