rjones28 

She's been on a paddle boat.

big john

We do. There are many different types of fire ants. My ex worked in pest control and she said the main types of ants they dealt with were thief, fire, and Argentine ants.
To remember, they said "the thief set fire to Argentina".

Some say ants are going to eventually kill off everything on Earth. Happy Monday.

big john

Where?

Eric F 

Old Stables Trail off the west side of Sullivan Ridge Rd.

Bah Humbug

They'll have to get in line.

datlas 

Marching two by two, hurrah?

MoAlpha

The "tongue" is just to prevent water entry as far as I know. Not a problem at that location.

BillyD

Was it on your property, because if it was you have to exact revenge to make sure they recognize who they’re dealing with.

genejockey 

Pour gasoline down the hole and light it. What's the worst that could happen?

I hear the underground fire in Centralia PA is still burning, BTW. 60 years, all from a fire in a landfill.

Mojo31

The ones that bit me ended up drowning.

It was on my property. The remainder will be nuked with Triazathon.

Mojo31

In the past, I had been known to do that. The location will remain undisclosed.

big john

Don't know that one.

Eric F 

Here's our ride...https://www.strava.com/activities/7555071572 It's at the lower end of Sullivan.

indyfabz

It started in trash, but it spread to coal seams. I rode through what was left of the town in 2014 while touring across PA. The USPS had long ago cancelled the town's zip code. There were only a few residents and houses left. They were occupied by people fighting the state's offers to buy them out. The last residents finally settled several years ago and left.

One neat byproduct of the mess was that the state had to reroute nearly a mile of PA 61. The abandoned stretch became covered with graffiti and came to be known as "Graffiti Highway." Some of the graffiti was pretty funny. It became a popular tourist attraction and was still walkable and rideable (with some care) when I passed through. I have a few photos at home. Wish I had taken more because a couple of years ago the owner of the land covered it over with earth:

The End of Centralia's Abandoned, Colorful, Anarchic 'Graffiti Highway' - Atlas Obscura

If you ever come back this way on I-76 the abandoned stretch of the PA Turnpike is worth a ride. I've ridden it twice. Last time was in 2020 while crossing the state. You can pick it up in Breezewood. The rideable stretch, which is about 8 ,miles long, is now an official, unofficial bike trail. I've ridden it twice heading east. Like Graffiti Highway was, it's covered in graffiti. Part of it actually has nice pavement because it was used for training snow plow operators and such before it was donated to some organization for trail use. There are two long tunnels towards the eastern end. One is around a mile. Neither are lit. The abandoned road was a filming location for he post-apocalyptic film "The Road" staring Viggo Mortensen.

Bah Humbug

I did intend a double meaning, yes.

genejockey 

I remember hearing about the Centralia Fire decades ago, so it is kind of amazing that it's still going. I'd have thought it would have exhausted all the oxygen, and the CO2 would have built up from the lowest level and smothered it, but it must be sucking air in from somewhere.

BTW, thinking about all the coal mines is giving my claustrophobia a workout. Just the idea of working with a mile of rock over your head while you chip away at what's keeping it up.........

Mojo31

Double entendre time?

big john

Cool! You guys both ride XC hardtails. I thought about one before I bought the thing I have in 2018 but I was afraid it wouldn't like the rough rocky stuff. With the stuff I do these days an XC bike would be fine.

genejockey 

Ah, yes! The abandoned Turnpike sections! Because Dad's family was in Pittsburgh, we'd drive there a couple times a year. I remember sitting in The Way Back of whatever Ford station wagon we had at the time, with my sister, counting off seconds through the tunnels. Then I remember driving it some years later, heading to college up in the upper lefthand corner of PA and thinking, "Didn't there used to be 5 tunnels?" But the thought never lasted long enough to ask anyone. Then about 10 years or so, somebody posted something on FB about riding on the Abandoned Turnpike, so I looked it up and had one of those "I WAS RIGHT!!!" moments.

I watched a couple videos on YouTube, some folks not only going through the tunnels but going through the buildings at each end, the ventilation tunnel above the tunnel proper, and checking out the remnants of the giant fans that used to suck out what must have been pretty damned poisonous air, given what cars USED TO spew back before 1970.

indyfabz

Yeah. And anthracite coal is harder to put out once it gets going.

We provide rail service to a salt mine in the Detroit area. Big customer. A couple of people I work with have toured the mine. You have to go deep down in a small elevator. When you get down there there are open areas with pillars left behind for support. I have made it clear that I have no desire to take a tour because I don't want to have some folk song written about me when the roof collapses.

indyfabz

They started having drainage/leakage problems not long after the road opened. Also, they were only one lane in each direction. The PA Turnpike was far more popular than the state anticipated. Forcing traffic to squeeze down into ne lane in each direction often caused slowdowns. The abandoned stretch is longer than what is rideable. Beyond the eastern end of the trail at Pump Station Road is private property and fenced off.

genejockey 

One of my favorite songs when I was a wee lad was Peter, Paul, and Mary's version of "The Ballad of Spring Hill".

WhyFi

I've mentioned this before, but I took a rather more conservative approach with an ant hole in my basement - boiling water, about 10 quarts of it, poured in to a funnel.

It actually didn't kill all of the ants, but it killed a lot of 'em. How do I know this? Because the survivors removed all of the dead and deposited them on to my basement floor - circular dispersion pattern centered on the hole, with much higher density in the middle; instead of mounding up the bodies, they carried them further and further out. The field of dead was prolly about a 4' radius. Easily thousands of 'em (they were on the smaller side of the ant spectrum).

The survivors weren't seen after their pallbearer services, thankfully.

genejockey 

Part of me wants to ride it, because of the nostalgia and curiosity and part of me rebels at the idea of riding through an unlit tunnel over a mile long.

Mojo31

That is nuts!

I've never used gasoline in the vicinity of any buildings. When we did it it was in open fields we were preparing for events.