A day of meetings. A great day.

I woke up around 8:30 and made it to the east end of Charleston in time for a 10:00 meeting with one of the people who worked to get Blair Mountain nominated to the national register. An environmentalist, her concern is with MTR – Mountaintop Removal Mining – the way today’s modern coal industry obtains its coal. MTR is exactly what it sounds like. Anyway, it was a fantastic meeting; shorter than I’d expected, but no less informative. Despite feeling under the weather, the woman I met with was friendly and engaging and answered all of my questions. Promising a copy of my final report, I went on my way.

I had some time to kill before my next scheduled meeting, so I wandered around the West Virginia Stat Capitol complex. I took some pictures. It was massive. The dome on the top of the capitol building is four feet taller than the dome on the US Capitol!

My next meeting was a long one, but man was it great. The folks who took time to meet with me were great. They answered all my questions, volunteered more I hadn’t thought of, gave me a good view of the way their office works, and were generally wonderful.

Afterwards, I returned to my hotel and confirmed my appointment for Wednesday. Then, because I deserve it, it was off to the movies. Here’s a tip: don’t go see 10,000 BC. Why? Because it is terrible. You have been warned.

Then I found some Indian take out which was melt-your-face-off hot, watched some TV, and fell asleep a happy man.