Entry tags:

suburban exploring

Picpost!
I snagged wingedrivers today and we went on a rock hunt. For some reason the rocks were heavy, so we ended up wandering around the area taking pictures and being eaten alive by mosquitos.



Anyone remember the pics I took of the local shalepiles sometime last year? (Well, I do, damn it.) The one huge shale hill that can be seen from the turnpike seemed like a good photo op.

We skidded down one hill . . .


. . . squished across the creek, and went to take more pics. But as I've said before, shots of these things never seem to properly display the scale by themselves. One rock looks much like another, and from the looks of the hill by itself, it could really be any size.



So I decided to give it a reference.

Here y'all go; it's my better side.



This is as much zoom as my camera would allow, and gives a decent idea of size in relation to the second pic up.



It really is too bad she didn't get a shot (or video!) of me slipping and sliding for about twenty feet down the damned thing.


Otherwise, we found a toad (the first toad I think I've ever seen in this area):



And then we found water.






I took that last one to Deviantart, because I like it lots.


Then we got lost and ended up under the turnpike and two towns/village/whatever-type things over. But the turnpike looked cool from the wrong side.



'Twas good times. :D

Whoops! I forgot the entire reason we took cameras out there--the moon field!

I'd somehow spent a few years wandering the trails of this area without running into this thing . . . but a couple weeks ago I was walking a mutt, turned the corner, and ran into something that looked like the surface of another planet.












You'd think I'd have realized something else huge was out there from Google's aerial pic.

How's this for reference?



While I was at it, I did some research on the area. It seems I'm only a long walk away from an old coal mine, and that I'm living in what used to be a mining town/train stop--one with a rather ugly, bloody history. It also seems these shale piles--easily seen from space--have been around since at least the early 1900s. started with the mine in the 1870s and stopped in the 1950s. Holy history!

Now as long as I don't fall down a hidden mine shaft one of these days, all will be well.