Skip to main content

An Eastern North Carolina Ramble

Yesterday was the first official roadtrip with the new camera. Two weeks ago, I bought a Canon Rebel XSi. I'm enjoying it thoroughly so far!

Joe came up from Wilmington for this ride through the Northeastern Part of the state.

Route: I-540 - US 64, US 64 Business, US 264A, NC 33, US 17, NC 308, NC 11/42, NC 111, US 264, I-540.

For the entire flickr set over 80 photos: Go Here.

The first stop was a walk around Bailey, NC which the main part of town sits on the opposite side of the tracks from US 264A. There is a great old abandoned Feed Mill here.

IMG_0033

IMG_0036

Bailey is home to a short NC 581 truck route because of a railroad underpass on NC 581 that is only 8'6" high.

IMG_0042

Outside of Wilson on US 264A - Was an unbelievable old gas station ' Save On Gas'. The station has most likely been abandoned for years. But fortunately, the old sign and some of the neon tubing is still there.

IMG_0046

I'd love to see how that sign looked lit up at night.

S

IMG_0053

The next stop was the town of Farmville, and we walked around there a bit. US 264 had ran through Farmville years ago, but the town has been bypassed not once but twice. US 264A follows the first bypass to the south...while the US 264 freeway runs to the north. NC 121 now runs on part of the old alignment.

IMG_0057

This was the second old neon 'BEER' sign found on the trip. There is another on US 264A in Bailey.

BEER!

Downtown Farmville isn't a bad place.

IMG_0067

IMG_0076

And unlike US 264, US 258 still runs through it.

IMG_0077

Now on US 17 in Chocowinity, there is this rare sign for WITN-TV. WITN is an NBC affiliate and the sign outside its studios dates from the mid-late 1970s. This is the era when NBC used the stylized 'N' and abandoned the peacock all together.

IMG_0094

Never thought I'd see one of those again.

US 17 is two lanes north of Washington to Williamston - and offers a view like this in Old Ford.

17 North

Finally, near the end of the trip, Joe spotted this 'sign' find. Another old black on white crossroads signs. This one is actually for a church. Good News Church.

IMG_0114

A fun trip...and the camera got some good use and practice just in time for the Labor Day trip to Michigan.

Comments

Eddie Wooten said…
Indeed, Farmville is not a bad place at all!

Popular posts from this blog

Chowchilla Mountain Road to Yosemite National Park

Chowchilla Mountain Road of Mariposa County is one of the oldest roadways servicing Yosemite National Park.  As presently configured this fourteen-mile highway begins at California State Route 49 near Elliot Corner and terminates at the Wawona Road in Yosemite National Park.  Chowchilla Mountain Road was constructed as a franchise toll road over Battalion Pass circa 1869-1870.  The highway was built at behest of Galen Clark to connect the town of Mariposa to his property near the South Fork Merced River at what is now Wawona.   In late 1874 the highway along with Clark’s Station would be purchased by the Washburn Brothers.  The Washburn Brothers would continue to toll Chowchilla Mountain Road as part of their Yosemite Stage Route lines.  The highway would ultimately become a Mariposa County public highway in 1917.  Mariposa would later be more directly linked with Yosemite Valley in 1926 following the completion of the Yosemite All-Year Highwa...

Interstate 40's Tumultuous Ride Through the Pigeon River Gorge

In the nearly 60 years Interstate 40 has been open to traffic through the Pigeon River Gorge in the mountains of Western North Carolina, it has been troubled by frequent rockslides and damaging flooding, which has seen the over 30-mile stretch through North Carolina and Tennessee closed for months at a time. Most recently, excessive rainfall from Hurricane Helene in September 2024 saw sections of Interstate 40 wash away into a raging Pigeon River. While the physical troubles of Interstate 40 are well known, how I-40 came to be through the area is a tale of its own. Interstate 40 West through Haywood County near mile marker 10. I-40's route through the Pigeon River Gorge dates to local political squabbles in the 1940s and a state highway law written in 1921. A small note appeared in the July 28, 1945, Asheville Times. It read that the North Carolina State Highway Commission had authorized a feasibility study of a "...water-level road down [the] Pigeon River to the Tennessee l...

Angus L. Macdonald Bridge

At 1.3 kilometers (or about 0.84 miles) in length, the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge is one of two bridges crossing over the Halifax Harbour between Halifax, Nova Scotia and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, with the other bridge being the A. Murray Mackay Bridge . Opened in 1955 and named after former Nova Scotia Premier and Canadian Minister of Defense for Naval Services Angus L. Macdonald, the Macdonald Bridge was the first bridge that crossed Halifax Harbour that was opened to traffic. The Macdonald Bridge was also the subject of the Big Lift, which was only the second time in history that the span of a suspension bridge were replaced while the bridge was open to traffic. Planning began in 2010 for the Big Lift, while construction took place between 2015 and 2017. Similar work occurred on the Lion's Gate Bridge in Vancouver, British Columbia before the project took place on the Macdonald Bridge. At this time, much of the bridge infrastructure is new, leaving only the towers, main cables and...