PennSilverTaco's Aspergers (and general BS) thread!

Centralia is about 2hrs from me. I need to drive through one of these days. Looks cool

 

At the time I snapped this picture with my iPhone, my 2010 Tacoma was pushing 145K miles (now it's almost at 147K), and had taken me on a lot of adventures over the years; However, this is probably the closest it will ever come to being driven in Siberia!

 

DO IT! Since you've got a PRO which obviously has 4WD, you'll be able to go a lot of places I can't!

 

This may have actually been just outside of Centralia in neighboring Frackville...

 

This was actually someone's house, and it was outside of Centralia so there's no eminent domain...

 

Want to see what it's like to drive in Russia, without actually going to Russia?!?! Here ya go!

 

1962 T-bird in someone's yard in Frackville...

 

I actually got stuck after stopping to take a picture of the Thunderbird, and roasted my right rear tire pretty good, before I was finally forced to back up and really gun it to get going again...



Once again, an authentic Russian driving experience in the Keystone State!

 

Same house again; I think this might actually be two attached houses, though I don't know if two different families are living in it. That pickup parked out front seems to be fairly new though!

 

On another note, that is actually a public street and not a really long driveway; I just didn't want to tempt fate by driving my 2WD Taco down it!

 

From what I've read, many people pass through Centralia without realizing it; You really have to look closely to see that there was once a fairly sizable community here just three decades ago!

 

I have a 2WD Taco with a brake-actuated limited-slip rear diff that I lovingly refer to as a "fake posi"; It can get me out of some sticky (or snowy) situations, but I was gonna wait until I drove up in the spring to fully explore Centralia!

 

What also confuses me is that there are a lot of fairly large trees around, considering that there were several buildings here well into the late 1990s and well into the early 21st century...

 

This is where they have the abandoned stretch of road that became the "graffiti highway" blocked off; The graffiti highway has since been covered with dirt to keep people from adding to it...

 

This scene looks it was pulled from one of my favorite video games of all time, The Last of Us!

 

Definitely pulling off the "zombie apocalypse" look here; This is a brand new respirator that I bought at Sherwin-Williams on Thursday, because it is "large" which fits me better than the "medium" mask I bought at Home Depot right before COVID got started. My mom read that there might be toxic gases present due to the ongoing underground mine fires and about freaked out, and I told her I would bring this mask just in case. I did not actually need the damn thing, but I put it on just for the photo op...



Wearing it for an extended period of time caused my glasses to fog up (a major gripe of mine with the cloth, surgical, and N95/KN95 masks we've been wearing for the last two years); Also, as stated above the legitimate need to wear this mask did not actually present itself.

 

A frozen chain link fence and an iPhone make for a beautiful picture!



This fence surrounds St. Ignatius Cemetery, which once belonged to the long-demolished (in 1997) church of the same name...

 

Back on the road and beebopping around Centralia...

 

Inadvertently drove back to the outskirts of Ashland...

 

Driving back into Centralia after hanging a U-turn...

 

There were a lot of these "FOG AREA" signs around, and not just in Centralia (though this particular one obviously was); I don't think I've ever seen one in my neck of the woods!

 

My truck did surprisingly well on the hard-packed snow leading up to St. Ignatius Cemetery, without the "Fake Posi" mode activated; Gotta love those Cooper Discover AT/3s!

 

And leaving the cemetery; Photos taken with the Nikon D5600 will be coming momentarily...

 

The people in that gray Ram were also obvious out-of-towners who were exploring Centralia...

 

One of the many clues of what used to be here, a fire hydrant seemingly in the middle of the woods!