Coal Miner's Granddaughter

I could just not pull myself together this week and photograph my outfits... or put more than 2 minutes of thought into any of them.  For that reason, I'm going to start the weekend off with some photos from a little trip I took over my winter vacation.

These pictures were taken in Western Pennsylvania this past December.  I grew up in coal mining country (no I'm not a coal-miner's daughter, but I am a coal miner's niece/great-niece/granddaughter/friend, etc.)  

While I was visiting my parents, I had a little itch to take a ride out to my grandfather's childhood home.    It's a small village not far from where I grew up, but I had only been there once as a young child, so I had been wanting to go back and explore.  This little town came-to-be only because of the coal mine that was once there.  All of the houses are built in patches, and as you drive around, you can clearly see where the miners lived and where the bosses lived.  There are lots of abandoned bridges, train tracks and coke ovens.  That specific mine is long gone, but in this photo I'm standing in front of an old coke oven.  I think they are scary and beautiful all at the same time.  I was fascinated by them as a kid, and now at 28 I finally took some time to explore them.

Here is a photo of Brownsville, PA, which is a big town in the area.  From this view you can see the Monongahela River.

So there you have it... not exactly style blog worthy, but a look into my little world.  If you want to know any details about what I was wearing in the first pic, you can find that here.

Happy Friday!