We whipped up some breakfast on our RV propane range, somewhat secured our belongings, and drove our house out of the Strack yard and onto the open road.
On the morning’s agenda was a 4.5-hour drive from Fairburn, Georgia, to Starkville, Mississippi.
With a quick coffee stop in Birmingham, AL, I drove the final miles of our journey down a rough Mississippi dirt road. I was afraid our fiberglass box would rattle apart, so I sped up to smooth things out. It did not work.
We pulled into the Burns Dirt Starkville laydown yard, about one mile from Mississippi State, where we’d sleep for the night. Mission accomplished.
And now for the day’s primary mission… We prepped our gear, grabbed our PPE, and drove west in the F250 toward the Red Hills Mine.
North American Coal’s Red Hills operation is one of the finest mines I’ve visited. I LOVE it. The mining is phenomenal, but the reclamation is even better. They produce consistent power for a large portion of Mississippi and restore the land to an even better condition than they found it.
We completed a brief induction and headed out into mine area one, where the dragline worked. The monster earthmover swung an 82 CY bucket to uncover the last bits of coal in the mine area before its scheduled move a few miles away three next month.
A Cat 6040 excavator loaded Cat 785s with coal as D10s and 11s pushed the earth nearby. To watch a D11 work with a dragline casting material behind it was magical.
With a quick stop at the orchard they have on some of the reclaimed land to check if there was fresh fruit, which there was, we made our way to the newest part of the mine, mine area three.
I’d visited Red Hills three times before, but this was my first time in the new section. As we got to the bottom of the first box cut, we shot their P&H 2800 loading 789 haul trucks with overburden to uncover the D seam of coal. The eery clanking of an electric rope shovel never gets old.
Since it’s a large-scale mining operation, they must approve all my latest photographs before publishing but, lucky for you, I have MANY to share from past visits. Enjoy, and we’ll see you tomorrow for day three!