something wilde: Canada Part 13: Mining, Sliding, Falling

B.U.M

I've been where the sun don't shine.

That's what their t-shirts say and we've been there. Here is our hard hat wearing proof.

The adults had to wear these big battery packs for our lights. They also had blankets and wraps to put on if you didn't bring enough clothes. It got crazy cold in there. My fingers were icicles by the time we got out.

Working in a coal mine, going down, down, down, working in a coal mine...whop, about to slip down!

Our tour guide led us through the mine. Kent kept saying that she was cookie monster since she was dressed in a blue jump suit. When we got far enough in the mine, the tour guide had us all turn off our head lamps so that we could see how dark it was in there. That was Clark's favorite part. Then she showed us how dark it would have been for the workers by turning on just her headlamp. Seriously not enough light to work.

We stopped and had lunch just outside the mine. There was some beautiful scenery.

Just down the street from the mine is the Frank Slide Interpretive Center. Everything in Canada is an interpretive center. When I first heard about a place called Frank Slide, I thought it was going to be something fun. Nope. It was a place to remember the people of the town of Frank that were killed in Canada's deadliest rockslide. The mountain behind the group below is the mountain that crumbled. It killed nearly 100 people. I couldn't believe how far the slide reached. We were far, far from the mountain and still climbing in those rocks that had once been on top of the mountain.

If you are ever wondering how to get kids to want to take pictures, just take them to a big rock pile. Every time I turned around a kid would ask for their picture to be taken. Clark and Skylar were having a regular old photo shoot. Skylar would ask me to take her picture and then she would get in a nice sleeping cat pose. I cracked up each time! What a character! Clark loved looking like he was climbing the biggest of rocks. Kent was in heaven - there were rocks. He threw to his heart's content.