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Pineville is a coal mining town.. I'd never seen one until this week. It's a very depressed, poor and uneducated area. A flood destroyed the town in the early part of the century, and of course textile mills were shut down and offshored (funny there was a wal-mart in town doing lots of business - walmart buys all of thier clothing from china now.. if only everyone realized how powerful their dollar is). Coal mining is all there is to do here. I saw ambulances all over the place. That was kinda creepy in itself.
During my guided tour we got to ride through one of the coal mining operations.. there were big trucks and equipment everywhere.. conveyor belts spat out piles of black coal, and the roads were covered in black mud. It was interesting, but nothing I'd want to be around very often.
On the way in to Pineville I saw these old cabooses - not sure if they were still in use, but it kinda looked like it since there were men working around them.
There were lots of old buildings, some looked pretty cool. Most of the construction wasn't so hardy.. lots of company shacks with asphalt roofing used as siding. Can't count the number of delapidated, ruined houses and buildings I saw. Lots of burned down husks of homes too. Very little new construction in this area. Tuesday was election day so there were advertisements all over. (this was Hillary country, even though she & bill are partly to blame for the depressed economy due to offshored textile & manufacturing jobs a la NAFTA.)
After I arrived early Tuesday I unpacked and met my trail guide. Riding dirt bikes on the streets is legal there, so we rode a few miles out to the trail head and began to putt around. I asked him to take me to all the scenic views. We spent almost as much time off the bike, looking at nature as we did riding.
This was one of the highest points on the trial system. There is a town way down in the bottom.. it was hard to look that far down for very long (I'm afraid of heights):
The views were absolutely gorgeous. Everything felt so *alive* out in nature.. My trail guide gets paid to take people on the trails and show them around. He said he had a "card" to go work in the mine, he could start tomorrow if he wanted. But he said he didn't have a wife or children, so there was no reason to trade his life for that. Plus, he said he loved his current job. I would too!
Many of the trails we went on were 2000 feet or more above sea level. Some trails were cut on the side of steep hills, so we had to take it easy - a little bobble or rock could have sent us down the side of a mountain! We stopped for a break here, my feet dangled over a dropoff that went down as far as I could see.
Here is what most of the trails looked like. Nothing special.. they were in good condition, no erosion or mud bogs to deal with. Lots of rocks and an occasional briar reaching out in the trail.
We rode 140 total miles over 6 hours according to my bike's odometer.
So - now that's out of my system, I am already looking forward to a weekend whitewater rafting trip in June, somewhere in Tennessee.
During my guided tour we got to ride through one of the coal mining operations.. there were big trucks and equipment everywhere.. conveyor belts spat out piles of black coal, and the roads were covered in black mud. It was interesting, but nothing I'd want to be around very often.
On the way in to Pineville I saw these old cabooses - not sure if they were still in use, but it kinda looked like it since there were men working around them.
There were lots of old buildings, some looked pretty cool. Most of the construction wasn't so hardy.. lots of company shacks with asphalt roofing used as siding. Can't count the number of delapidated, ruined houses and buildings I saw. Lots of burned down husks of homes too. Very little new construction in this area. Tuesday was election day so there were advertisements all over. (this was Hillary country, even though she & bill are partly to blame for the depressed economy due to offshored textile & manufacturing jobs a la NAFTA.)
After I arrived early Tuesday I unpacked and met my trail guide. Riding dirt bikes on the streets is legal there, so we rode a few miles out to the trail head and began to putt around. I asked him to take me to all the scenic views. We spent almost as much time off the bike, looking at nature as we did riding.
This was one of the highest points on the trial system. There is a town way down in the bottom.. it was hard to look that far down for very long (I'm afraid of heights):
The views were absolutely gorgeous. Everything felt so *alive* out in nature.. My trail guide gets paid to take people on the trails and show them around. He said he had a "card" to go work in the mine, he could start tomorrow if he wanted. But he said he didn't have a wife or children, so there was no reason to trade his life for that. Plus, he said he loved his current job. I would too!
Many of the trails we went on were 2000 feet or more above sea level. Some trails were cut on the side of steep hills, so we had to take it easy - a little bobble or rock could have sent us down the side of a mountain! We stopped for a break here, my feet dangled over a dropoff that went down as far as I could see.
Here is what most of the trails looked like. Nothing special.. they were in good condition, no erosion or mud bogs to deal with. Lots of rocks and an occasional briar reaching out in the trail.
We rode 140 total miles over 6 hours according to my bike's odometer.
So - now that's out of my system, I am already looking forward to a weekend whitewater rafting trip in June, somewhere in Tennessee.
