The sun was shining brightly this morning. The temperature may get into the 90s today. Ugh! We’ve had al sorts of weather extremes since coming to Gillette, but nothing with high heat.
This morning, Bill and I went on a tour of the Eagle Butte Coal Mine. The last two times we have been in this area we have tried to get on a tour, but weren’t able to accomplish it. Today we were successful.
It was a great tour. We learned about the equipment used in the pit mining process. We saw the huge trucks dumping loads of coal into the hoppers. The coal then goes on a conveyer belt where it is loaded on the trains. A truck can carry enough coal to fill two rail cars. Each train is 100 to 150 cars long. We were also able to see a drilling machine doing its things...drilling holes for blasting the coal to loosen it.
We were particularly interested to hear about the reclamation process. That is very important to the area. We went past several reclaimed areas. I was glad our guide pointed them out, because they showed no sign of having ever been mined.
We were so glad to have finally been able to take the tour, which lasted two hours.
Before going home, we went to Taco Bell for lunch. With happy tummies we went back to the MH for naps.
Late this afternoon we had a thunderstorm. It lasted about 45 minutes and then moved on east. We were very glad we were parked on pavement at Walmart and not on a dirt lot.
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