Have a Coke Oven and a Smile

(All square pics. snapped on 10/27/12 - using an iPhone and Instagram filters)

I passed this...uhhh......thing (whatever it is)...the other day, while on a motorcycle ride with my friend. At first glance, I thought it might be what was left of an old train trestle...

...but that didn't make sense, since there was a train track running alongside it at ground level...hmmmm...

My friend and I rode right on by the "thing", without stopping to check it out - but I was so curious about the mystery structure, that I went back by myself over the weekend to have a better look.

I parked my bike, and began making my way through the thick tangle of weeds that concealed the "thing's" true identity to passersby on the roadway. Once I'd gotten through the wall of wild berry bushes and baby cedars, and had reached a tiny clearing where I could finally stand up straight...

(Snapped on 10/27/12 - using a Sony Cybershot set on panorama mode)

...I looked up and was astonished to be face to face with...^this^!

I'd seen something similar, in Canaan Valley, WV once. The person I was with then, had called them, "coke ovens"...sooooo...by my best estimation - this peculiar, ancient(ish) ruin that I had so gleefully discovered - was a connected series of crumbling "coke ovens"...perhaps?

But hey listen, if any of my readers out there happen to know differently - I hope you won't hesitate to correct me if I'm wrong...please! 

It surprised me how different the train tracks side of the "coke oven" fortress, looked in comparison to the first side...

Matter of fact - the individual ovens and their doors, all varied quite a bit from one, to the other, to the next...I never could come up with a reason for why they would be that way...

I walked all the way down to the far end of this fabulous, forgotten monument from the past (snapping an absurd number of pictures with my phone), and - feeling enormously happy with the day's prize find - I started to turn and head back to my bike...but then I stopped. I walked a couple of feet further until I came to a vine-covered fence, I peeked through the ivy and the chain link, and I gasped - because on the other side of that fence was something that might turn out to be an even more spectacular find than those glorious "coke ovens" were...that is, if I'm even brave enough to go there...

...I'll keep you posted!