Centralia, PA

[stingx]

Just finished a road trip to check out Centralia, PA. For the uninitiated, this was a coal mining town that had a few thousand folks living in it. An underground fire was accidentally lit and has been burning since '62. PA declared eminent domain in the 80s and now only about 6 folks still reside there (state hasn't yet forced them out). You can read up on this by googling about it. There's a ton of info on the matter, which in and of itself is quite fascinating.

Since we were only 20 minutes from Pottsville, you know a stop at the Yuengling brewery was on the agenda :) Great folks there running the place and very generous with the beer.

At the state line heading home we loaded up on a ton of fireworks too :) Not a bad way to spend a nice Saturday.

Here's a look at the closed off portion of Highway 61. The ground is unstable and the massive heat from the underground fires causes the asphalt to buckle badly.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3832/9119145988_0a85b5cdc4_b.jpg

A shot outside Yuengling Brewery.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7307/9117020343_ee9297f461_b.jpg

Some of the countryside and many windmills we saw in the area.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5342/9116916063_29af9facf9_b.jpg

[Tig]

I've read about Centralia and it is an interesting, kinda' scary place. The google image search is an eye opener.
https://www.google.com/search?gs_rn=17&gs_ri=psy-ab&tok=TqTagukq2NMaLhzJNOFW5A&suggest=p&cp=9&gs_id=70&xhr=t&q=centralia+pa&safe=off&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.48293060,d.eWU&biw=1366&bih=619&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=_VTHUfKvGIrm8wSB54H4Dg#imgdii=_

[piebaldpython]

I remember reading about Centralia from time to time in the Philly newspapers over court actions.............it was a freaky occurrence and I just can't imagine that you live there for however many years and then the ground under you catches on fire.

Yuengling is a fabulous beer.......so says Baby Cobra and her fiancee'.

[sunvalleylaw]

I cannot believe that the company responsible for the fires was allowed to basically leave an uncontrolled fire underground burning for 50 years. I have to imagine it alone offsets a fair number of Priuses in terms of carbon footprint. cool pics, but weird, weird, weird.