I Am Back For Two Days

When we set off on a day of exploring we usually have a plan, a list of the towns we want to see, places we want to visit, and cemeteries to explore. What slows us down are all those little roads along the way or the places not listed on the internet or brochures. There is always a “Wait what was that!” The next thing I know we are going down a road not on our list. There are a lot of roads out there folks that interconnect and intertwine. The next we know is we don’t know where the heck we are and our trusty little GPS aka George Piece of Sh*t gets just as confused as we do. Then we drive by the seat of our pants praying I don’t have to do a u-turn. The first time we left Miami we laughed and said “we won’t be back until next year.” Then we drove off to explore Baxter Springs and then on to Chetopa Kansas. We never made it to Chetopa and we hardly explored Baxter Springs but we had a grand time until we got lost. Then we drove and stopped and drove and stopped and the next thing we know we are back in Oklahoma driving through the town of Picher Oklahoma.

Picher is a sad little place. The buildings are marked with a cross with symbols painted in the corners. It was like driving through New Orleans again. Some buildings say “do not condemn.” I googled Picher this evening and was surprised by what I found. On Saturday May 10, 2008, tornadoes swept through the contaminated mining town of Picher, Oklahoma and leveled a more than twenty block area of town. Seven people have lost their lives to the deadly tornado in Picher.

Contaminated town? When we drove through it there was life in this town. It appears that heavy mining in the town has resulted in abandoned mine shafts and over 75 million tons of chat scattered about the town. Lead and other toxins have seeped into the groundwater, lakes, and ponds. Elevated levels of lead in the town's children have resulted in learning disabilities and other problems. The EPA has declared Picher to be one of the most toxic areas in the United States.

The town has been scheduled to be closed. The government has earmarked $3 million to relocate families with young children. Nearly all of Picher's population has evacuated. Some refuse to leave. I didn’t take any pictures, out of respect.

After we left Picher, we ended up in Miami but we went on and spent the night at Twin Bridges State Park.


Since we are depending on RV parks for our internet I am unable to blog every day. Then I discovered I can automatically publish my blog entries and that is what I have been doing. Currently we are back in Oklahoma but not Miami. We are at a park that has internet and cable TV and we will be here for two nights. I will be setting up more stories and pictures to be automatically published for a week and hopefully we will have internet when the last story is posted.

Life is good.