Pictures 16: Greene County Miners' Memorial - Pennsylvania

This actually happened before Pittsburgh, but, as is my fashion, I have forgotten to post it earlier. Alas. It's okay, though, because this will probably only be interesting to other weirdos like me who find coal mining fascinating. This is the Greene County Coal Miners Memorial in Kirby, Pennsylvania.

Click any image to see it larger in Photobucket.



See 4 more images below the jump.

older than the trees, younger than the mountains

So now that I have significantly bored you all with my a-little-too-enthusiastic babblings about US Highways and Interstates, I'll tell you about what it's like to drive them.

Last any of us cared, I was on US-19 in West Virginia. I stopped occasionally along the road to stretch my legs, but none was as enjoyable as the town of Fayetteville. In 2006, the town was named one of the Coolest Small Towns in America by Budget Travel. (Then again, one of BT's coolest "small" towns of 2010 had 110,000 people, so we kinda wonder how they define "small." Fayetteville has fewer than 3,000 people, so it is indeed small.)

Edit: See photos related to this part of this entry here (Pictures 12: Fayetteville, West Virginia).

I took a detour into Fayetteville and found a teeny little main road strip with a theater, many shops, restaurants, antique stores, historic old facades and a stately courthouse (Fayetteville is the Fayette County seat). I wandered around and took some pictures, and chatted with a few fellow travelers who were lounging in the shade outside the Fayette Theater. I drove up into the hills a bit and came across the Wild, Wonderful 24-Hour Adventure Race, where mountain bikers were emerging out of the woods to the cheers and whoops of a group of folks holding stopwatches. I wandered around the parking lot of the trailhead and it was as if I wasn't there; they were all so intent on the race that nothing else mattered. Adrenaline blinders.