Tiny World

Tiny World , originally uploaded by B.B. Bellezza.

This Saturday my family took a road trip to Tiny World in Shippensburg, PA. Tiny world was created by Ernest Helm for his cats in his backyard! There are lots of miniature houses, a barn, a mill, a gas station, fire station, train station, restaurant, school, courthouse and log cabins. The buildings are all about waist-high. Most of the buildings are decorated inside to very great detail. One house seems like it was specifically for his cats to go in, while the others would appear to not be cat-proof. There are more photos in my flickr photostream of Tiny World, just click on the photo above.

Although Tiny World was built for his cats, we didn't actually see any cats on Saturday, but it was icy and snowy, so I don't blame them for not visiting.

Tiny World was all decorated for Christmas (which I understand to be a pretty permenant situation), but it was kind of nice with the snow.

This is the article that got me interested to begin with in Tiny World.

The address is 6720 Rice Road, Shippensburg, PA, and you just make a donation to visit. There is a parking lot beside Tiny World.

Road Trip! Part II

Read here for Part I of my Memorial Day Weekend Road Trip.(Click on photos to see a larger view. To see ALL of the photos from our road trip, please check out my flickr photostream.)

We left the Wildlife Conservation and since we were both off all day, we decided to keep going. After a while....and frankly, I don't have the slightest idea how we got there, we just kept driving along....we ended up in Minersville, PA.

In Minersville we stopped for a quick bite and gas. We found this crazy statue. The statue itself isn't crazy at all, it's a lovely tribute to people who have lost their lives to coal mines. The crazy part is that it is in the parking lot of a Turkey Hill.

We also saw this awesome display in someone's yard!

We decided, well, we have gone this far, let's go to Centralia! We passed this cool pub along the way!


CENTRALIAI am by no means an expert on the history of Centralia, and I encourage you to do your own research if you decide to venture there. But I can give you a few little details, as I have been reading a book about Centralia and have done some research. I actually also remember driving through Centralia as a child many times on our way elsewhere and my parents telling me about the fire and seeing it go from a "normal" seeming town to one with fewer and fewer homes.Centralia was a booming coal mining town. In fact, Centralia means Center of Commerce. There were lots of houses and businesses during the coal mining times. (lol, I am not a historian, I am not sure when that was!) Anyway in 1962, garbage was taken to a pit, as was the regular status quo, and bured. They thought the fire was out. Unfortunately, however, the fire had caught in an abandoned coal mine.

A variety of things were tried to put out the fire. Eventually, the government pulled funding for trying to put out the fire. Ironically if they had put forth the funds then, a lot of money, not to mention peoples' homes, would have been saved.

The fire still burns underground all these years later. You can actually see smoke coming up from the ground.

This once booming town is now a ghost town.

We have tried to go to Centralia before, but a random blizzard broke out and we couldn't see anything.

Here are some photos....click to make them larger!This was a street we drove down. It just stopped and was overgrown.

View from a hill....you can't really tell where the houses were because everything is all grown over.

Here you can actually see the smoke coming out of the ground. (The smoke didn't photograph well!)

View from a hill....you can see coal in the distance.


In Centralia, there is a problem of sink holes. In 1982 a child fell into one. Thankfully he grabbed a root and his friend pulled him out quickly; however, the gases could kill you very quickly.Another such hole appeared in Route 61. It is blocked off on 2 sides and the road is detoured around now. We walked back to see it. There was all kinds of crazy graffiti and such. I actually think it is considered tresspassing to go back there, but it isn't posted.



While we were on the old Rt. 61, we actually felt a little off kilter and woozy. The road was on a tilt, and it was super creepy, so that may have added to the wooziness.

There was a house on this road. This is the coolest road sign ever!
I must say, I was completely shocked that there were other people visiting. It seemed so strange, but then again, I guess it shouldn't.

One last thing, you can't find Centralia on a map or by mapquest. I am not going to encourage or discourage you to go there, but it is in Northeast Pennsylvania. You can google it and find some info (with bad directions....lol) but if you can get to Ashland, turn at the Mays Drive in. You will go up a hill and there's a hard right turn in the road -- that's where the detour around the damaged part of Rt 61 is, although it is no longer marked. You will see the other side of the closed road and a cemetary. You are then in Centralia. If you don't know what you are looking for, you might miss it because it just looks like you are driving through the mountains and there are a couple of houses.

We then hit the road again.....

The exciting conclusion on the next installment: Road Trip! Part III

Until then, take care!

Road Trip! Part I

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Jim [Boyfriend] actually had the day off, so we decided to go on a road trip!

(This road trip blog will be given in a series because our day was so full of fun activity, it will never fit in one blog post!)

So, where to go.....for some reason we had a difficult time figuring that out this time.

Finally we decided to just get into the car and drive. I was thinking we could just go for a drive through the Amish farmlands, something that I have never specifically set out to do (although impossible not to do when you live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.)

We set out on Rt. 501 North from Lancaster. We wanted to see how far it went and where it led. (By the way, not really that far....)

For those of you who may not have ever been on a road trip where you just hop in your car and let the road take you where it may, I highly encourage you to give it a try. I know gas is expensive right now and shows no signs of getting less expensive, but we filled up our tank and drove all day and our only other expense was lunch and waters, and we had one of the best days ever.

We are driving up Rt. 501 and were having a delightful time. We came to this sweet town, Schaeffersville (maybe spelled wrong, and perhaps it's Schaeffertown? I really need to start a travel journal to keep track of these things)

What is perhaps my favorite thing about off-the-beaten-track road trips (by that I mean off of the express ways) is all of the quaint little towns you go through that you would have never noticed or realized that they were even there had you traveled on the highway.

Somewhere around Schaeffersville, or perhaps in the town itself, we saw a sign for the Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area. So we decided to check it out!

It was the so beautiful. There was a visitors center with lots of information. They had binoculars so you could look out into the wildlife area, which was a lot of fun. Also, they had a box of things to touch and feel like animal furs and antlers.

There was a beautiful collection of bird eggs, which was kind of amazing. Some of them look like little beads!

So there was a trail. We didn't make it very far. By "we" I mean me. I was wearing flip flops and a skirt, afterall! I wasn't expecting a hike on our road trip.

We did make it far enough to catch the great view, though.

Here are some beautiful flowers we came across there.


After coming back down the hill, we watched a bird and then we noticed a "swamp area." Actually, I think it was just a pond, but we are really not very outdoorsy and have no idea what anything is.At this pond, I saw the cutest thing ever! Baby duckies. I have tons more photos on my flickr of these duckies....I was obseesed.




After visiting the duck pond, we turned around and saw a horse and buggy! As many of you know, I live in Lancaster, PA, so this wasn't such a big shock necessarily, but we actually got a photo of it because it was parked and no one was in it. The Amish religion does not allow their followers to be photographed and I have respect for that. So here it is, a real life Amish horse and buggy:


So then we hit the road again.....



(my handsome driver)
More to come on our road trip! It was 9 hours, so there is a lot to see! There are about 150 photos of it on my flickr photostream, so if you can't wait to see the rest, check 'em out!

In the next installment: Centralia! (We went back!)

P.S. You can click on any of these photos to look at a larger one.

Roadside America

Today, we went to Roadside America, Miniature Village.

We got the "Weird Pennsylvania" book and found all kinds of strange things. Roadside America was one of these strange things.

If you have ever driven through this part of PA on route 78, most likely you haven't missed the strange, giant Amish couple that sits in the parking lot. For absolutely no reason at all, might I add. It is an oxymoron considering it is outside of the "miniature" village!

I had a major case of the giggles once we hit this statue. Of course, they are super creepy, too! So maybe I was giggling out of fear!The outside of the building looks completely uninspiring, but it does say to expect to see more than you expect....perhaps to make up for the uninspiring building?We walk in through the gift shop. Normal gift shop for the area....hex signs, amish dolls, other stuff.....if you have every been in the Lancaster County/Berks County area, you know what I mean. We buy our tickets and walk through curtains and come to a door. My heart was beating fast....I mean, this kind of reminded me of haunted house or something. And, I still had the giggles. We were so excited and.....It was completely amazing, strange, and....completely impossible to put into words. It was difficult to get a good shot of the entire room.There were tiny little villages, trains, people, zoos, carnival, WATERFALL, airport, airplanes, hot air balloons......dude, I could go on and on and on......Here are a couple of photos I took:

that miniture cemetary is one of my favorite parts! and the church bells rang!



that chuch had music!

See those guys working on the road? That roller moved!









Mini WW II monument!

Each hour they do this Nighttime pageant thing where they turn down the lights and do a really cheesey....but also very heartfelt and almost tear-jerking....slideshow. All the little houses and businesses turn their lights on, the train is going through, the waterfall is lit up, the airplane....it is so wonderful and lovely.

This was one man's dream and one man's art. He used to look out his window at night and he recreated what he saw. You can read the whole sweet story on the website.

Really, if you are somewhere close by, check out Roadside America! You will be glad you did!