We packed up in Barbourville and had coffee in the lobby. The high school kids had a pretty quiet prom night so no excitement there. The same woman who checked us in was entertaining the other visitors. Management should know that it's people like her that make the place fun to stay at. She is a local girl, and from listening to her talk, everybody in town is related to everybody else, nobody moves around much.

We found the first small road out of town and headed north. There is not much going on in this county but we soon started getting into the coal counties and in coal country everything is tied in with the coal mining business. We saw entire mountain tops missing from past mining operations. When they are done clearing out the coal, they bulldoze it smooth, spread grass seed on it and add stone where the water flows to prevent it from eroding. You could put a good sized airport on some of the cleared off areas. It is a little sneaky because they need rail to get coal out and instead of building a railroad to he mines, they use conveyor belts, really big, long ones, to move the coal from the mine over the mountain to the railroad. We followed a lot of railroad beds today and while we couldn't see the mines, we did see the coal coming over the top of hills to huge piles next to the railroad bed. There are hundreds of coal cars sitting on sidings ready to be moved and filled. We also saw quite a few trucks that looked like they would haul coal, but we were not sure where they would haul it to. Maybe to dealers that use coal for other purposes?. It looks like lots of people drive trucks for the coal company.

The roads in all these states are really good, much better than Vermont. It may be the milder weather or their politicians bring home more bacon. Some of the 4 lane roads have almost nobody on them and cross thinly populated parts of the state. The people in these tiny coal towns don't seem to be enjoying much prosperity. There are not a lot of tidy yards or neat little villages. The people seem content however so maybe this is a bad read. There are churches everywhere, and being Sunday, all the parking lots were overfilled. Almost every vehicle is a big Chevy or Ford truck, not many foreign cars here. And there are certainly plenty of junk cars and trucks everywhere. Cars and fuel must be a big part of their budgets down here.

Because we picked the smallest roads and smallest towns to drive through, we soon realized after trying unsuccessfully to buy a road map, that there is no tourism or tourists in these small towns. Who needs a map if you live here. Everybody is surprised when we talk to them that we are passing through.

We crossed into West Virginia and found it much like Kentucky with more coal mines and poor towns and people. Tonight we landed in Charleston, which is the capital of West Virginia. Again, we have no plans for tomorrow. Stay tuned.