Thoughts from the abyss

I headed out today for a usual Friday bike ride with a particular destination in mind. A friend of mine some time ago mentioned a small town that used to be, called Centralia, PA. It’s in the north-east part of Pennsylvania for those not sure. In the early 1960’s outside the strip mines, someone got the bright idea to burn some trash in or around the area of an abandoned strip mine. Surprise, a mine fire started. It still burns today…

The town is now gone, but the streets and remnants of what once used to be someplace are still around. All of the streets are still paved and utitliy poles still stand, but everything is vacant with the exception of a handful of homes still standing where people refuse to leave. I pulled into town and stopped, got off my bike, and just stood there looking around in awe. I then followed a road to the edge of town that overlooked it. I walked around for almost an hour taking pictures and just looking with thoughts of nothing more than “wow.”

It’s really creepy to see streets and no homes. What’s even more creepy is the fact that smoke still is still pouring out of the ground, or should I say ash. You can feel the heat from the ground when a wind gust blows by depending on where you are standing. I’m sure technically it probably wasn’t even safe where I was walking around, because the ground could collapse at any time. The smell was bad too. It smelled very musty with strong gaseous coal.

I took a bunch of pictures which you can see on my gallery. Do a Google search if for Centralia if you want to hear the whole story of what happened and what the government attempted to do to put out the fire. It was definitely a bizarre trip today that’s for sure.