Silent Hill or Just a Ghost Town

Heading home we passed a sign on the interstate that had an attraction called Reptiland, peeking my curiosity I grabbed my phone and searched the internet to see what it was all about. Looking at the website it was definitely something my kids would enjoy! I noticed that the time was now around 4 pm and Reptiland was open until 6, so I figured we could stop and have enough time to enjoy it. We arrived and found that we had enough time to see a show and do a bit browsing around.
We enter the area where the live show would be taking place and shortly after getting settled we were given a very information, fun and informational show about giant fruit bats, kinkajou (sugar glider), marine toads, millipedes, a blow gun demonstration and information about the Amazon area.
We then headed on to give ourselves a self guided tour through the rest of the zoo, we seen many different species of snakes, from mambas to vipers to cobras and constrictors.
I loved the live demonstrations allowing visitor's to touch the less harmful reptiles and amphibians. There were a great variety of lizards, a komodo dragon, turtles and tortoises, crocodiles and alligators and frogs!
It was very nice to see many of the animals in a natural looking habitat and getting to see the tortoises and turtles outside in the water, which was very beautiful with bamboo, flowers and ornamental grass.
We then headed next door to a building which housed a butterfly exhibit with various free flying butterflies. It was fun to watch them flutter around and land in front of you on flowers. As we were leaving we passed a beautiful peacock who was roaming around the grounds.
The kids loved this place and couldn't wait to get home to email pictures to everyone. We will stop here again if we get the chance to, it was well worth the stop and everyone walked away having learned something new that day.

We noticed that the sign that said we were only 15 minutes from the park, we figured we should check it out. Once we arrived there we found that it is not only a amusement park but a campground with pools and picnic areas, a bald eagle habitat, a theatre, golf courses and museums! The next thing we found that we like is that we could buy a one price ride all pass or we could pay per ride. I liked that since a few adults in the group don't ride, it was nice to be able to get into an amusement park and not have to pay just to walk around. Their is a large selection of rides to choose from, my favorite being the Haunted Mansion, it's fun and still makes you jump! Another favorite has to be the Scenic Skyride, its about a 15 minute ride on a ski lift to the top of the mountain and back. You can see everything up there! We all know you can't go to an amusement park without riding the roller coaster, so we took a ride on the wooden coaster, The Phoenix, it was a blast, not to fast and definitely not to slow. The Twister was awesome too. Nothing to scary, but loads of fun! The Flume and Skloosh were among my favorite rides too, if you like getting wet, then these are the rides for you! The kids enjoyed the huge array of kiddie rides, the bumper cars are always a big hit with them. They really thought the Panther Cars were neat too, they said it was like driving a real car. Space Walk was another big thing for them, it was like walking on the moon according to them.
The list of rides goes on and on. There is never a dull moment.
The food courts are just as notable as the rides are, they have just about anything you are looking for to eat from burgers and hot dogs to pasta! Of course, you can't forget the good stuff either like the funnel cakes, cotton candy and fudge!
All in all I think this place is all about family and traditions. I know we can't wait to go back and make a weekend out of it!

After a few weeks of reading about Centralia and its history, it really got our interests peaked in going to check this town out. For anyone who doesn't know anything about this place here is a few facts about the area.
The story began sometime in 1962 along the outskirts of town when trash was burned in the pit of an abandoned strip mine, which connected to a coal vein running near the surface. The burning trash caught the exposed vein of coal on fire. The fire was thought to be extinguished but it apparently wasn't when it erupted in the pit a few days later. Again the fire was doused with water for hours and thought to be out. But it wasn't. The coal then began to burn underground. That was in 1962. For the next two decades, workers battled the fire, flushing the mines with water and fly ash, excavated the burning material and dug trenches, backfilled, drilling again and again in an attempt to find the boundaries of the fire and plan to put the fire out or at least contain it. By the early 1980s the fire had affected approximately 200 acres and homes had to be abandoned as carbon monoxide levels reached life threatening levels. An engineering study concluded in 1983 that the fire could burn for another century or even more and "could conceivably spread over an area of approximately 3,700 acres." Most of the homes were condemned and residents were relocated over the years with grants. A very few number of residents still live there to this day.