Day 55, March 21, The New River Gorge National Park (national site #8)

 Three amazing things:  1- The New River Gorge Bridge:  built only recently in 1977, it is one of the longest single-arch bridges in the world.  Until it's construction, folks had a 30-40 minute drive down a steep twisting narrow lane to cross the river at the bottom and then slowly snake their way back to the top of the gorge.  The trip across the river and its wide gorge is now accomplished in less than 30 seconds by simply driving over the bridge.  It's quite impressive, a modern-day engineering marvel.  It continues to amaze me that man dreams up something quite impossible but which he thinks he can achieve, and then he actually does it!  

2- We learned more than we ever thought to about the coal mining industry in the US from about 1889 to its bust in 1964.  Coal, coal mining, and coal miners drove the American Industrial Age by providing the fuel for homes, industries, and railroads which folks so heavily relied on prior to the automobile.  Why the demise of these hundreds of coal mines and consequent coal towns scattered across West Virginia and Pennsylvania?  When trains switched from coal to diesel oil as a means of propulsion, the need for coal dropped precipitously, and entire towns which had been built to support tens of thousands of miners and their families died with the mines.  Today we visited abandoned mines set on steep hillsides all up and down the walls of the New River Gorge as well as the ghost towns which supported them.  We are camped in a lovely wee Campground at the Beckley Coal Mine Exhibition.  It's all completely fascinating.

3- Aaron is healed sufficiently from his arduous hikes in The Smokies that I took him on a very steep hike today.  It was only a 2-mile roundtrip hike, but man oh man was it steep.  We began on the rim of the gorge and hiked down to the river below passing an old abandoned mine with its supporting work buildings, conveyor belts, hauling trains, power houses, and lived-in shanties.  The first half mile down was sufficiently steep to cause our knees to ache and quite frightened us for the return trip back up.  But the second half was down a precipitous set of 821 stairs.  It was a sweaty tiresome hike back up.  

4.  We learned the roots for the term red neck.  Imagine that; here, deep in red-neck territory, we discovered where the term originated.  Who knew!

Good deeds:  1- Because Aaron is such a trooper to follow me on these repeatedly difficult hikes I take him on, I treated him to lunch at Biscuit World where he had a white flour and sugar laden apple muffin.  Wasn't I kind!  2- The Beckley Coal Mine Exhibition Campground doesn't open until April 1, but Lola in the office unlocked the doors to meet me, take my payment, and allow me to camp in their sweet wee campground for 3 nights.  I thanked her profusely and gave her a perfume sample I'd come across in Nashville along with a Costco sized jar of sea salt dark chocolate.  She was elated.  3- The waitress at Biscuit World was cute:  elderly, toothless, and with a deep southern drawl, a fetching smile, and a hospitable spirit, she was most attentive to Aaron, smiling at him heartily, she even winked at him.  While he seemed slightly abash, I suggested he reward her with a hefty tip.  She was deeply moved by his generosity, and I was quite amused by the whole episode.