Living Above the Geoid: Coal Country

Trips to Coal Country are always a welcome thing in my life. Not that I support the use of coal as our primary energy source or anything like that. Far from it actually. It just makes for frikin awesome geology. Seriously. The majority of the tectonic history of the eastern United States was unraveled at a site not too far from Danville and the Tour de Tykes. If that's not cool, then I don't know what is...

Gunnar and I thought about it for a while, and it's been three years since either of us had been to the Tour de Tykes. Last time we were there there was camping in a field somewhere. There was a short track race, and a hill climb. There was swimming in a creek. There was dinner at some cool people's house. It was also about 110 degrees out with 90 percent humidity. This past weekend was [obviously] not that. No camping. It rained on the drive up there. Ms. Geology and I stayed in a hotel in Hazleton. Funny thing is that there were about 40 or 50 young college age looking people there (so basically they looked like us). We had no idea why they were there. We knew there was some kind of concert in the hotel so we figured maybe for that. Next morning at breakfast we find that they are from Bryn Mawr College. Ok. As we check out, I spy a familiar looking packet with the following writing on the front: "Geology 102 Spring Class Field Trip Guide." Classic.

Race went off pretty normally. Zach drove all the way up with his buddy Joe to take pictures with Kyle's camera (see the book of face). National Forrest and I damn near missed the start, rolling up with about 1.5 minutes to go. Pics now... bed time for me.