Here are some GOOD pictures of Centralia I have taken.  I took these with a "real" camera--because I wanted to make a rather . . . unique point about Centralia.  -True enough, but mostly I was just miffed because the "Offroaders site" was takin' better pics that I was, 'n stuff.  :)

   This next picture just doesn't do this scene credit.  The (Heh-heh.  Heh.  Heh.) "crack" you see is at _least_ 35 feet long, 2 feet wide, and about a foot and a half deep.  It also has managed to melt about six inches of snow overnight from the heat of the fire.  :O

   I call this next one "valley of devastation."

   An interesting point about this.  If you walk up this valley, you pass just one area after another of devastation, fumes, and general desolation.  Then, amazingly, you find this narrow meadow--totally untouched by what goes on on both sides of it.  Smoke free, meadow grasses rippling in waves under a clear blue sky--happening upon this place was like finding an oasis of untouched country in the center of what wouldn't have looked terribly out of place near Hiroshima in the 40's, or Mount St. Helens in the 80's.



   I took these next two pictures to try to prove a rather . . . interesting point: (I had to wait for/arrange to find just the weather conditions, at just the right time of day.) Destruction perpetrated by man, is invariably ugly.  -Ever see gypsy moth larvae eating an oak forest? (If you're from Pennsylvania, I KNOW you have! :) ) However--on the occasional sometimes--destruction perpetrated by nature, can be beautiful.  -Like a forest fire.  (fire! Fire!! FIRE!!!!) cf. Incredible.jpg Now, you might say that Centralia is a man-made creation--true enough--_but_, the Chinese have proven that there were mine fires burning--100,000 years ago.  So, just as man can start a forest fire! Fire!! FIRE!!!! (Um.  -Sorry about that.  :) )---it is actually something "invented"--for lack of a better word--_by_ _nature_.  -So why am I bringing this up? Well, while one might very easily describe Centralia as grim, bleak, desolate, disturbing, depressing--even ethereal--I am hoping to make you see it as I (sometimes) do---beautiful.  That is what these next two pictures are all about: