Yesterday, Courtney and Adam (newish friends who sadly live too far away) plus Sarah and I hit the Route 61 portion of the coat region, from Centralia to Shamokin.

This was mostly a picture taking excursion, but it also turned out to be a Q & A on religion and Krishna consciousness. That’s always a bit of fun.

The first stop was Centralia. Centralia was an old mining town that was subject to an underground mine fire, thus making the once thriving town a ghost town.

We park the car (oh, we took Sarah’s car because my bus smelled REALLY badly of two stroke oil – note to self: find a new place to store it) near a spot where there used to be a lot of smoke billowing up, but there was literally none that we could see.

Poking around and taking the odd picture here and there, we head back. Courtney finds a bit of smoke coming from…

But that was it. Good eye though.

That’s Courtney looking at something. There’s lots to look at there. Mostly rubble. But considering that it used to be a wooded hill, it’s impressive.

Ok, so we pile in the car and drive down to where a section of Route 61 has been abandoned.

There is wonderful graffiti to show you the way.

It’s maybe a quarter mile walk to the reason why it was abandoned:

Here are some other shots of it, click to make them bigger.

Sarah, Courtney and Adam (hard to see Adam here).

Most of the graffiti was pretty crass, as most graffiti is, but there were two that really thrilled me. The first:

Yay for art being resistance! Simple and fun.

The second was this:

Oh dear sweet Ham Leg! It became a momentary buzz word. Everyone but myself has probably long forgotten “Ham Leg.” How sad.

There was also the very classy “mattress along the side of the road.”

Ohh the lucky gal who got the chance to make sweet love under the stars of Centralia!

Moving on, a curious thing we found was a bit of graffiti that seemed pretty official, even cop-like. Check it out.

The word “BIKE” appears three times, with X’s near large gouges in the ground.

And then, further up, circles next to the word “BODY.” There’s a bit of clothing scraped to the ground as well.

We were trying to figure out what happened and then we saw this:

Looks like someone tried to take their bike (motorcycle, I think) over a sweet jump. And it looks like it didn’t end well for them.

Just another bit of weirdness courtesy of your friends in Centralia.

About two miles south of Centralia is the town of Ashland. Ashland is home to the Mother Monument. It’s a bronze rendition of Whistler’s Mother.

See?

Imagine having this look into your window at night!

Ashland looks like most larger coal region towns. It’s a bit wealthier, I think, but all in all, looks about the same.

On the way back through Centralia to Shamokin, we stop by the church on the hill. It’s impressive from a distance, but once you get closer to it, it’s not all that great. Shame.

The day was growing to a close so we couldn’t give Shamokin the attention is deserved. We drove around for a bit and then climbed a whole mess of stairs.

At the top, Sarah and Courtney contemplated throwing me down said stairs and we left.

But not before checking out Shamokin’s water source, Shamokin Creek.

Don’t you just love the beautiful orange hues? Not a thing can live in it. Wonderful!

We wrap up with Shamokin and the Coal Region and head back to Lewisburg and Peking Gar for some wonderful Chinese food and talks about music snobbery (mostly my own).

It was quite the fun little evening. It’s a shame that Adam and Courtney live in South Carolina. It would be a bunch of fun to hang out with them more. Too bad.

Well, thank you to Sarah for driving and thanks to Courtney and Adam for allowing me to give you a quick tour of some fun little places in our neck of the woods.

Related posts:

1. Thanks Jeff and Sarah! Thanks!
2. Good Shirts Sarah
3. Let’s see Seattle with Eric & Sarah!
4. One blur of a day.
5. You Are Beautiful