Jim came down with a bad cold yesterday and wanted to stay in bed this morning. I snuggled up and kept him company while Kathe went out to tour a coal mine with a group of friends from the Route 66 Allegros from California.The area around Gillette has a coal seam which is part of the Powder River Basin, an area that makes up 42.3% of total coal production in the United States. Some of the seams are as big as an eight story building. They first remove the top soil, then they blast and crush the coal, and then transport it to 38 states where it is used to power electricity. On the tour they learned about the history of mining in this area and watched as the electric shovels loaded the trucks with 50 tons of coal, truck after truck. Once the coal is processed it goes on a conveyor belt and is then loaded onto railroad cars. The trains are a more than a mile long and each carry more than 428 tons of coal. 70 to 75 trains leave the Powder River Basin daily. She had a very interesting morning.
When Kathe returned, Jim was feeling better so they decided to drive to the Devils Tower National Monument. It was an eventful drive. It was supposed to take only an hour to get there, but the GPS took them on a dirt road for several miles before they encountered seven very big cows in the middle of the road. Time to turn around. Which way to the Devils Tower? They had no GPS and no cell service in the middle of nowhere, but they eventually found it!Tomorrow we leave the Tiffin rally and head to Cheyenne.
No comments:
Post a Comment