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The family and I went out for catfish and then a Sunday drive today, which always lands us in downtown sections of rural Oklahoma towns.  


Today it was Pauls Valley. 


The pic above used to be a pawn shop:  

Yeah.  No loaded firearms, please.  We'll sell them to you, though.  For a really fair price!


I digress.  


I hope it's obvious from the two pictures above that what was once a business that provided people jobs and a service, such as it is with pawn shops, is now just a roofless (yes, the blue in those pictures is the sky), gutted out mess. 


Take a gander:  

Seeing places like this always makes me sad, because the downtown sections of rural towns are the historic areas.  So, a roofless, gutted out mess of a pawn shop on Main street in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma means a roofless, gutted out space in a building that was built over a century ago.  A time stamp today proves my point; this was on the threshold:  

I'm sure the city will opt to destroy it as opposed to refurbishing, given the economic climate and the fact that Pauls Valley hardly has a booming tax base.  Although it does have its annual noodling tournament.  So it's got that going for it.  Which is great.

On the up side, we took back roads home and specifically looked for a farm that we saw back in March when we were roaming the state.  And when I say "farm", what I really mean is an enclosed, grass-less area caging calves, cows, what appeared to be alpaca, five broken down buses, a non-functioning washing machine, a van, a couple of trucks, several lawn mowers, an RV-ish-looking thing, an old Plymouth, some chickens, at least one pot-bellied pig and approximately 48 goats.  


We found it again.  Score.  ->