Workshop

Well..Being a teacher-I have to have like 150 hours of development every 3 years or so. We do get some through the school, but we have to do some on our own. I decided to sign up for this resources and the environment workshop when I was at CAST this year. The workshop was for 5 days and was in Longview. So it was a pretty busy week. It was SOOOO hard being away from Tucker that long-I missed him like crazy. The week was really awesome though. Most of it was at the Sabine Mining Company-a coal mine outside of Longview. We hear so many negative things in the media about coal-it was neat to see their side. I was super amazed at how much they do to protect the environment. The do tons of reclamation and make the land so much better. We got to tour a power plant-climbing up(or riding the elevator) to like 350 ft but the neatest part was touring the actual coal mine. We got to see the big equipment and even got to get on the drag line-which is the big crane thing they use to dig out the dirt. It is over 400 feet long and we got to be in the cab while the guy was operating it-very cool. Each link on the chain that holds the bucket weighs 150 pounds. The bucket...is HUGE. We had 16 people just on the opening where the digging teeth are. They fed us really great while we were there and the Texas Mining and Reclamation Association-who put on the workshop-put us in areally nice hotel for the 5 nights. They gave us some goodies and we got to bring coal back for our classrooms. It was a great week even though it was hard to be away from my boy. I may put some pics up soon!