I set my mental alarm clock and woke up from a very light sleep in time to see Cynthia off this morning at 5:15 AM. She and her friend Jules from Vermont were off on a very long drive back to college in Kentucky. I am happy to report that she arrived safely but sounded very tired on the phone. I look forward to hearing about her drive when she has checked in and rested up a bit. We are already missing her on the tour. The rest of us, after finishing up packing and readying the vehicles, took off for Scranton, PA to take a tour of a real coal mine. It was very cool. Really, fifty degrees constantly, all year long when you are deep under ground. We went 350 feet down and got an extensive lesson of how coal mining worked and works. A lot of changes in the last 100 years.
On our way to Scranton, only an hour or so from the fair, I heard over the two-way from Nick that my trailer was on the slide. The ball and ball arm of the hitch had come off. I pulled off quickly and sure enough I was dragging the trailer by it's safety chains. Second time I have experienced the drag. The first time was about 10 years ago and it was a ball size mistake by the guy who sold me the trailer and hitch. This time it was a big mistake by one of us. I won't name the person, but one person in the group who had never put the ball arm on the vehicles put the arm in and then put the pin that hold it to the hitch connection...but did not set the stop on it so that it wouldn't slide out. The person had never done it before and guessed how to do it. Since any number of us can put the hitch on we regulars never guessed that the novice had installed the ball and arm. So we did not double check the pin. The terrible blue-state roads ( a term I came up with because every blue state we have been in has really bad roads....California leads them all. I noticed red states seem to take care of their infrastructural a little better..just an observation). Jim ran about a mile back to find the ball and hitch, while the rest of us looked at the trailer side of the hitch, which looked a bit grim, it had been molested fairly badly by the ball being ripped out of it's socket. Amazingly the jack still worked in spite of being dragged a half mile. Though it's bolts are a bit loose now and the jack base is ground up a little. We also discovered the RV's back bumper was scratch up a bit and slightly bent in one area. The big surprise was the trailer frame itself bent a bit at the point it meets the trailer box. Now it bend or bows about 1 or 2 inches...looks a little funny. There goes it's resale value.
After messing with the innards of the trailer side of the hitch I was able to free up the little part inside that hold the ball in place and get it to accept the ball. But we were missing a pin to hold all that weight...we found a bolt among all of our tools and stuff that was nearly a perfect fit. Still I would not trust it for cross country. We found a Walmart after going to the mine and got a new ball and a new pin. Since the ball was ripped from the socket some of it's metal was shaved off and I felt it would be safer with a new ball and a snugger fit. After a couple of weight and stress tests we determined it would probably be OK to continue on with it.
We road a special car down the shaft...the miners would actually ride in the coal cars, which could hold 5 tons of coal when full. Each miner had a quota of 15 tons (3 car loads) a day...in actuality they had to make the loads heaping so it turned out to be 16 tons a day...(this one is is for you JC...16 tons and what do you get, another day older and deeper in debt...)
The shafts are actually the area where coal once was. They would remove the coal between the sand stone and use it as the passages. The timbers aren't there to hold up the roof it turns out. They are early detection devices. When the start to talk you start to walk...or run. If the roof becomes unstable and starts to fall it puts weight on the timbers the begin to creek...that was a sign to run for cover.
Everyone had fun but the little ones did get bored a time or two since it was a long 1 hour tour with lots of coal talk.
Victor thought it would be fun to work in the mines.....yeah, right!
I found these mushrooms growing on a timber in the mine. The mines are constantly dripping water. The miners would have to deal with the water, the dust from the coal, the chance of flash fires, of cave ins, lack of oxygen, poisonous gasses.
Coming up was interesting. The light from outside was hard to take at first and the air slowly warmed as we came up. We also noticed....
the girls had coal feet.
Turned out Titus' chair couldn't fit in the car down so Miles volunteered to walk him about while we toured. He kept Belle too. After seeing the girls feet I am glad Belle stayed on top.
We road a special car down the shaft...the miners would actually ride in the coal cars, which could hold 5 tons of coal when full. Each miner had a quota of 15 tons (3 car loads) a day...in actuality they had to make the loads heaping so it turned out to be 16 tons a day...(this one is is for you JC...16 tons and what do you get, another day older and deeper in debt...)
The shafts are actually the area where coal once was. They would remove the coal between the sand stone and use it as the passages. The timbers aren't there to hold up the roof it turns out. They are early detection devices. When the start to talk you start to walk...or run. If the roof becomes unstable and starts to fall it puts weight on the timbers the begin to creek...that was a sign to run for cover.
Everyone had fun but the little ones did get bored a time or two since it was a long 1 hour tour with lots of coal talk.
Victor thought it would be fun to work in the mines.....yeah, right!
I found these mushrooms growing on a timber in the mine. The mines are constantly dripping water. The miners would have to deal with the water, the dust from the coal, the chance of flash fires, of cave ins, lack of oxygen, poisonous gasses.
Coming up was interesting. The light from outside was hard to take at first and the air slowly warmed as we came up. We also noticed....
the girls had coal feet.
Turned out Titus' chair couldn't fit in the car down so Miles volunteered to walk him about while we toured. He kept Belle too. After seeing the girls feet I am glad Belle stayed on top.
Even though we are only around 3 and half hours from the fairgrounds we were all worn out from the day so we hit a Cracker Barrel for dinner. The serving sizes were sadly small and the service was slow and error filled. It was our second time at a CB and I think our last since in Texas and here in PA it was the same. Where is a Bob Evans when you need one. Still I am thankful for the meal and the waitress did give me a lead on camps nearby. That is where I am now as I write this. We will respite here until late morning then run an hour or sow down the road to check out an illusion this guy has for sale. After that we will end up back in Toledo for a night or two with our cousins then onward to discover more of the country as we work our way over to AZ for the Coconino County fair..
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