We're In Beckley, West Virginia......

Happy Friday evening everyone.  Today is a special "double post" day.  We are camping at the Exhibition Coal Mine in Beckley, WV.  It is a beautiful evening, with temps in the 70's and very low humidity.  If fact, Rob is sitting outside typing this post.  

   We are in a small city owned campground located directly over a coal mine here in Beckley.  The site is paved, with 30 amp electric, water, and sewer.  The bath houses are great too.  

We arrived here about 4 pm this afternoon.  We did a quick set up, and then were off to explore the Exhibition Coal Mine.

Here is a picture of the "company store."  It is now a the gift shop, campground check-in and ticket purchasing center.  We only toured the above ground exhibits.  Rob said he wasn't ready to be six or more feet underground just yet!!

This is the mine superintendent's house.  It was fully furnished with period items and was just beautiful.  Two of it's three floors were open to tour.  Rob took lots of pictures and said he'd make a post about it later.

We also saw this two room school house.  Grades 1-4 were in one half of the building.  Grades 5-8 were in the other half.   The mine company paid the teacher's salaries.  

We saw the Bachelor's Shanty where single men or married men who traveled back home on the weekends lived.  


You can see the inside of the shanty.  With a bed, stove, table, and siting area, it sorta reminds you of a r-Pod.  

Of course there was a church.  It was very beautiful inside.  Heat was from a wood stove set along the left side of the church.  We couldn't imagine it being a very warm place to worship in the winter.  

These are just a few of the over 100 pictures Rob took on our tour.  He said he will post more pictures later.  

To round out our afternoon, we went to Gino's Pizza & Spaghetti House for dinner.  It was close by, reasonably priced, and not very busy.  The pizza was great too.

Thanks for checking by today.  Tomorrow we plan to be up and out of here early.  We have about 340 miles to Van Wert, OH.  

Friends Ella and Tom are letting us camp in the "Brown Family Driveway Campground."  Oh boy!  We look forward to visiting with them and her sister Tink.

Until next time, stay safe out there.....-R,T, but no J!