October 20, 1973: My Move to Eugenie Square
	September 1-3, 1973: A Weekend in Traverse City, MI
	Return to Index for 1973

The Bank gives me two weeks of vacation each year, and I decided to take one of them towards the end of September. It will be mostly a driving trip, although I will be flying to Charlotte and back, and then using my Mom's car to go off on my own for a while. I'll end up back in Charlotte, and my Mom and I will go visit my sister and her family in their new house outside of Elon, North Carolina.

By planning ahead, I got a good deal on airfare, so it cost me less than $200 to get my roundtrip to Charlotte. My Mom, who has gotten her drivers license already, was able to pick me up at the airport.

We spent the evening together and played down at the Charlotte Bridge Club before I borrowed her car and headed out on my "grand cirle" around North and South Carolina.

Later on in this photo album, whenever I can remember, I will mark my route on maps like this. But I confess that I didn't think to keep track of my route in 1973, didn't try to add it when I wrote my slide narratives years later, and now, in 2019, can't remember it precisely at all. I could make a guess, but why bother?

What I can say is where I went, because I have the pictures themselves to guide me.

So where all did I go? Well, before just launching into the pictures and one destination after another, here is a map of the area with the stops that I made marked on it.

First, I headed east across North Carolina intending to visit the Outer Banks, where I don't think I had ever been. I knew that I wanted to visit the site of the Wright Brothers first successful powered passenger aircraft tests. So I drove first out towards Nags Head. On the way, I passed the Fort Raleigh Historic Site (the site of the first English settlement in what is now the United States), and so since I pretty much had to return this way, I would stop there after my visit to Kill Devil Hills.

I am a sucker for revisiting placs I've been, so I next wanted to spend a night in Windy Hill Beach, where Art, Peter, Chuck, and I spent a few days during college (in the same motel if I could find it). Getting there had me drive south along the coast through Wilmington, where I stopped to see the USS North Carolina. After Windy Hill, I headed up through Columbia, South Carolina, so I could stop to see Peter, who was currently stationed at Fort Jackson.

After a night there, I drove up towards Asheville and the Blue Ridge Parkway. I wanted to see Montreat again (where I had spent a memorable summer at the Presbyterian retreat center), and I also wanted to see Linville Falls, about which I had always heard so much. Finally, on my way back to Charlotte, I stopped off in Salisbury, North Carolina, to see one of my best college friends, Steve Lee, whose degree in Sacred Music from SMU had landed him a position as the music director at a large Methodist church there.

Returning to Charlotte, I spent another night with Mom, and then the two of us drove up to my sister's new house outside Elon, North Carolina, before returning to Charlotte and my flight home.

So, not worrying overmuch about how I got from one place to the next, or where I spent each particular night, let's just look at the stops I made.

Kill Devil Hills

Just outside the small town of Kill Devil Hills is the Wright Brothers National Memorial, which commemorates the first successful, sustained, powered flights in a heavier-than-air machine. From 1900 to 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright came here from Dayton, Ohio, based on information from the U.S. Weather Bureau about the area's steady winds. They also valued the privacy provided by this location, which in the early twentieth century was remote from major population centers.

The Town of Kill Devil Hills

First, let me clear up something that had confused me before I arrived at the memorial and surrounding historic site. I came up towards the site from the south, and as I approached the town of Kill Devil Hills, saw that it was designated the site of the historic flights. With some 4,000 people, this town is the most populous settlement in both Dare County and on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

As I said, the signage said that the town was home to the site of the Wright brothers' first controlled, powered airplane flights in 1903. But I had always thought that the flights had taken place at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, which my map told me was still another four miles north. So had I been misinformed (wrong) all these years? Well, yes and no.

At the time of the flight, the town of Kill Devil Hills did not exist; it did not receive its municipal charter until 1953. As the nearest settlement at the time of the famous flights, Kitty Hawk became popularly noted as the site of those flights, I guess because it was easier to be imprecise than to say "the flights occurred on some open hills approximately four miles south of the town of Kitty Hawk, NC". Or perhaps it was because the right after their four flights in their Wright Flyer, the brothers walked back to Kitty Hawk, where they sent a telegram from the Weather Bureau office to their father informing him of their success. The Wrights chose the area because its frequent winds and soft sandy surfaces were suitable for their glider experiments, which they conducted over a three-year period prior to making the powered flights. But now you know.

The Memorial

Driving into the historic site, the first thing you notice is the 60-foot granite monument, dedicated in 1932, that is perched atop 90-foot-tall Kill Devil Hill, commemorating the achievement of the Wright brothers. They conducted many of their glider tests on the massive shifting dune that was later stabilized to form Kill Devil Hill. Inscribed in capital letters along the base of the memorial tower is the phrase "In commemoration of the conquest of the air by the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright conceived by genius achieved by dauntless resolution and unconquerable faith." Atop the tower is a marine beacon, similar to one found in a lighthouse.

The doors of the tower are stainless steel over nickel, with a price of $3,000 in 1928. The the three relief panels on each door represent the conquest of the air, mentioning, among other figures, the French locksmith Besnier (who had the concept of a flat wing), the German Otto Lilienthal (who died conducting gliding experiments), Icarus (the Greek mythological figure who flew by attaching feathers to his arms with wax), and the kites of the Wright Brothers and others.

The Art Deco design was selected in 1930, but it took a year to prepare and stabilize the site. Construction began in October 1931 and with a budget of $213,000, the memorial was completed in November 1932. In the end, 1,200 tons of granite, more than 2,000 tons of gravel, more than 800 tons of sand and almost 400 tons of cement were used to build the structure, along with numerous other materials. It is constructed of granite mined at the North Carolina Granite Corporation Quarry Complex.

The Wright Brothers chose the site both for its steady winds and for its remoteness, preferring to conduct their tests away from the media of the time. It struck me as a bit odd to see a shoreline that hasn't been developed; the lakes and oceansides I've seen before an in pictures all seemed to be full of hotels or vacation home. But here, there wasn't much of anything.

A quick look at a map of the area can tell you why. The barrier island on which Kill Devil Hills is located is only accessible via two highway bridges or by ferry. There is one bridge on the north, and another that I crossed earlier to the Fort Raleigh site. If you continue further south, you will eventually come to land's end, where either you retrace your path or take a ferry back to the mainland.

But of course we aren't on the mainland here, just a barrier island. The Atlantic's east of us, but another huge body of water, Albemarle Sound, is west of us. Only beyond that do you reach the mainland. So the views to the east are expansive:

But I digress. Coming back to the Wright Brothers Historic Site, there was a Visitor Center, which is home to a museum featuring models and actual tools and machines used by the Wright brothers during their flight experiments including a reproduction of the wind tunnel used to test wing shapes and a portion of the engine used in the first flight.

In one wing of the Visitor Center is a life-size replica of the Wright brothers' 1903 Wright Flyer, the first powered heavier-than-air aircraft in history to achieve controlled flight (the original being displayed at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C.).

There is also a recreation of what it is thought the inside of the brothers' living quarters (which was actually out on the field next to the hangar), was like. It amazes me how simply giants of history lived, if only for a time.

The Wrights made four flights from level ground near the base of the hill on December 17, 1903, in the Wright Flyer, following three years of gliding experiments from atop this and other nearby sand dunes. It is possible to walk along the actual routes of the four flights, with small monuments marking their starts and finishes. Two wooden sheds, based on historic photographs, recreate the world's first airplane hangar and the brothers' living quarters.

The Field of Flight

Hangar and Living Quarters

I found it really interesting to wander around the area, and I thought the Park Service had done a good job of recreating the feeling of what it must have been like for the Wright Brothers to have been here.

The Wright Brothers Memorial

Authorized as Kill Devil Hill Monument in 1927, the site was transferred from the War Department to the National Park Service in 1933. Congress renamed it and designated it a national memorial in 1953 and the national memorial was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. The memorial is co-managed with two other Outer Banks parks, Fort Raleigh National Historic Site and Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

Leaving the Historic Site, I got a very nice view of the memorial, and that view is at right. I drove south to where US Highway 64 heads over to Roanoke Island so I could visit Fort Raleigh.

Fort Raleigh National Historic Site

Fort Raleigh National Historic Site preserves the location of Roanoke Colony, the first English settlement in the present-day United States. The site was preserved for its national significance in relation to the founding of the first English settlement in North America in 1587. The colony, which was promoted and backed by entrepreneurs led by Englishman Sir Walter Raleigh, failed sometime between 1587 and 1590 when supply ships failed to arrive on time. When next visited, the settlement was abandoned with no survivors found. The fate of the "Lost Colony" remains a mystery.

Once I got onto Roanoke Island, I followed the signs for the Fort Raleigh National Historic site. To get there, I actually just stayed on US Highway 64, which winds around the north end of the island to the bridge that carries it to the mainland. (On the map at left, you can see that there is a second bridge labeled the US 64 Bypass. That route, and the Virginia Dare Bridge that carries it over the Croatan Sound. That route and that bridge would not be built until the late 1990s.)

The historic site is off U.S. Highway 64 on the north end of Roanoke Island, about 3 miles north of the town of Manteo. The visitor center's museum contains exhibits about the history of the English expeditions and colonies, the Roanoke Colony, and the island's Civil War history and Freedmen's Colony (1863-1867).

The Earthworks

At the site, I stopped by the Visitor center and then wandered around the large area to see what I could see. I first came across the earthworks shown at right. Archaeologists have found some clues to the location of Sir Walter Raleigh’s “Virginia” colonies, but no evidence for precise location of the settlement or the remains of the colonists has yet been found. The most important piece of verifiable evidence is this small Elizabethan earthwork fort, locally called “Old Fort Raleigh,” which became the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site. The earthwork was excavated and reconstructed some years ago by the U.S. Park Service.

To determine why there was a small earthen fort with no evidence of a nearby settlement, we need to understand its function. What was its purpose? To mount cannon to control the waters off the north end of Roanoke island? To protect Thomas Harriot’s 1585-6 industrial and scientific activities taking place west of the fort? To protect a now-lost landing spot east of the fort? To house and defend the eighteen men who made up the military “holding party” that came, fought, and fled in 1586? Or was it to serve the new, civilian settlers of 1587, who later became the Lost Colony? No one really knows.

There were a number of trails you could follow, and I did some walking along them. I also stopped by the amphitheatre where the "Lost Colony" play is put on in the summer.

The Lost Colony outdoor historical outdoor drama began in 1937, and is based on Sir Walter Raleigh's accounts of the efforts to establish a permanent settlement on Roanoke Island. The play is performed in this outdoor amphitheater, and more than 1.5 million people have seen it.

The Thomas Hariot was a leading scientist and scholar who was employed by Sir Walter Raleigh to be his expert in the flora and fauna of the New World, and specifically Roanoke Island. A trail through the site gives an idea of what the island look like when the settlers arrived.

The Elizabethan Gardens are located adjacent to The Lost Colony's Waterside Theatre, and although things have changed a lot since my visit, the gardens were still nice to walk through. When I was here, there were two or three rather small pocket gardens and a space between them, but I note that now the area is quite extensive and the gardens much larger.

The Bodie Island Lighthouse

From Fort Raleigh, I wanted next to head down the coast towards Myrtle Beach and Windy Hill. To get there, I could either go back to NC 12, drive south to Hatteras and then take a ferry to pick up the next coast road at Cedar Island, or I could work my way inland and navigate through coastal North Carolina heading south. I opted for the "scenic" route.

Bodie Island Lighthouse

So I re-crossed the US 64 bridge to the barrier island, and turned south. As I was crossing the bridge, I got a good view looking south down the Outer Banks; you can see the bridge I am on, and also the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge that crosses the Oregon Inlet. More about that bridge when I actually cross it.

Driving south, I went past the turnoff to Roanoke Island; the drive along the ocean was quite pretty, and I saw signs for a famous old lighthouse about five miles further on. I saw the lighthouse way before I got to the small parking area for it and got out to take a look and a picture (shown at left).

The current Bodie Island Lighthouse is the third that has stood in this vicinity of Bodie Island on the Outer Banks in North Carolina and was built in 1872. It stands 170 feet tall and is located on the Roanoke Sound side of the first island that is part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. The lighthouse is just south of Nags Head, a few miles before Oregon Inlet. I'd hoped I might climb to the top, but the stairs were closed off. (Actually, a four-year renovation that began in 2009 once again made the 214 steps that spiral to the top climbable by the public.It was renovated from August 2009 to March 2013, and was made climbable by the public. There are 214 steps that spiral to the top. The structure is one of only a dozen remaining tall, brick tower lighthouses in the United States, and one of the few with an original first-order Fresnel lens to cast its light.

Leaving the lighthouse, I continued south on NC 12. The road was in the middle of the thin barrier island with the ocean on one side and the sound on the other. Eventually, I crossed the Bonner Bridge- a two-lane automobile bridge spanning the Oregon Inlet, between Bodie Island and Pea Island (both part of North Carolina's "Outer Banks"). The bridge carries NC 12 and is utilized by local and seasonal tourist traffic. The 2.7-mile bridge was built in 1963 and was dedicated to Herbert C. Bonner- a 12-term Congressman from North Carolina.

The Trip to Wilmington and the USS North Carolina

Driving down Highway 12 was scenic but for the most part kind of desolate. I did stop along the Atlantic shore a couple of times.

Sandy Beaches on the Outer Banks

The trip ended here for someone, long ago.

I continued down the highway, taking my time and enjoying the afternoon. Perhaps, as it turned out, I should have investigated ferry schedules sometime earlier. But you have to remember that this trip was way before the Internet and smartphones that could access it. Or even cell phones, for that matter. Eventually I reached Hatteras, North Carolina, and found, right where the road deadended- the ferry terminal. When I pulled into it, there were no other cars there waiting, and when I went over to the ticket office I found out why. The office was closed as the last ferry had left some 45 minutes earlier.

I remember that another car came along about the same time. In it was a single driver, maybe ten years older than me. I told him about the schedule and we started talking about what to do until the morning. I could only think to get a motel room at one of the motels I'd passed coming into town, and as it turned out we ended up sharing a room- as they were in short supply. The next morning, I was back at the terminal for the first ferry.

The ferry trip was in two legs. The first leg was the ferry from Hatteras to Ocracoke Island. The only way on and off this particular part of North Carolina's Outer Banks is indeed by ferry. From Ocracoke, the ferry continues on to Cedar Island, North Carolina. While Cedar Island is also an island, there is a bridge from it to the mainland, so I could drive my car off the ferry and on south along the coast. I did take a couple of pictures from the ferry:

Leaving Hatteras, North Carolina

Ocracoke Island

Riding on the ferry was really neat. This wasn't the first time I'd been on a car ferry; I recall a couple of times when I was a kid traveling with my family when dad took our car on one. But this was the first time I'd driven my own car (actually, my mother's) on and off a car ferry. All throughout the trip, there were lots of local denizens keeping us company.

From Cedar Island, I picked up US 70 to Morehead City, and then took NC 24 over to Jacksonille, NC. From Jacksonville, I took US 17 southwest down the coast to Wilmington NC, and then right through the city. As I crossed the Cape Fear River, I could see the USS North Carolina just north of me, so I decided to stop and have a look at it.

The USS North Carolina

USS North Carolina was the first ship of the North Carolina class of fast battleships. The original treaty limit of nine 14-inch guns was revised under a new treaty to nine 16 in guns. The keel was laid down in 1937 and the ship completed in April 1941, while the United States was still neutral during World War II. During this period, she operated off the eastern coast of the United States.

Aerial View of Battleship North Carolina

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, North Carolina was sent to Iceland to counter a possible sortie by the German battleship Tirpitz; when this didn't happen, she was promptly transferred to the Pacific to strengthen Allied forces during the Guadalcanal campaign. In the Pacific, she screened aircraft carriers engaged in the campaign and took part in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, where she shot down several Japanese aircraft. The next month, she was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine but was not seriously damaged. After repairs, she continued to screen carriers during campaigns across the central Pacific in 1943 and 1944, including the Gilberts and Marshall Islands and the Mariana and Palau Islands, where she saw action during the Battle of the Philippine Sea. She took part in the invasion of the Philippines as well as the Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa in 1945, including numerous attacks on Japan. Following the surrender of Japan, she carried American personnel home during Operation Magic Carpet. North Carolina operated briefly off the east coast of the United States in 1946 before being decommissioned in 1947. Stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in 1960, the ship was saved from the breaker's yard by a campaign to preserve the vessel as a museum ship in her namesake state. In 1962, the North Carolina museum was opened in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Windy Hill and Fort Jackson

This trip proved to be one of the very first instances of my penchant for revisiting places I've been and which figured prominently in some way in my memory. On this trip, that would be Windy Hill Beach north of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I stayed here for a week during the summer of 1967 with some Davidson friends- Art Abplanalp, John Smith (who we all called Chuck), and I think Peter Guerrant. I have two memories from that trip. One was watching reruns of The Time Tunnel, and the other was what happened on our way back to Charlotte. Art was driving his green Mustang, and we had just gone through McBee, South Carolina, when we were literally run off the road by two police cars. They boxed us in, forced us out of the car and we had our hands on the roof getting frisked. Turns out that a bank had been robbed just minutes before we went through McBee, and a police officer had been shot. The getaway car was, apparently, another green Mustang or small sedan with four perps!

After an hour of checking IDs and having the car searched, we were on our way, only to be stopped twice more (although not so violently) on our way home. Even coming into Charlotte, we were shadowed for a time by another police car, but he must have phoned us in and gotten the word that we weren't the perps he was looking for. I found the same motel we'd stayed in that summer, and stayed there for a night by myself, enjoying the beach and a dinner out.

The next day, I headed inland towards Columbia, South Carolina, and Fort Jackson where my college roommate, Peter Gurerrant, was stationed. He was still in the Service in the Adjutant Generals Corps (the Army's administrative service). I took a couple of pictures during my stop in Fort Jackson- both of Peter outside his BOQ:

After Davidson, Peter had attended law school for a while in California, but then entered the Army when he began to think that it wasn't the career for him. Peter served in Vietnam for his overseas tour in 1971; he's been in the Army for almost four years now, and will probably make it a career.

The Blue Ridge Mountains and Linville Falls

Leaving Columbia, I still had time on my trip for a day up in the mountains, so, once again, I thought I would indulge my penchant for revisiting places and head up towards Asheville and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

From Columbia, I headed directly up to Asheville, following I-26 for most of the way. Almost all of this Interstate highway in South Carolina had been completed by the time I graduated from Davidson, but some of the sections in North Carolina (from the state line to Asheville) were still under construction.

When I got to Asheville, I decided to drive over to Black Mountain first and drive up into Montreat, the Presbyterian retreat where I'd worked for a summer in 1963. I walked around the area for while (which hadn't changed much in ten years), and actually thought about hiking up to the top of Lookout Peak (as we'd done almost weekly the summer I was here) but thought that would take too much time.

Instead, I headed east a bit to find US 70 which would take me to a road I could take up into the Blue Ridge and to the Blue Ridge Parkway. The parkway is, I think, one of the country's most beautiful drives. Indeed, until I started traveling for a living and had the opportunity to drive along the Pacific Coast and in the Rocky Mountains, the Blue Ridge Parkway was the most beautiful, relaxing driving experience I'd ever had. I wanted to experience that relaxation again, and so thought I would drive a few hours north and see how far I could get.

The Blue Ridge Parkway is a United States National Parkway and All-American Road noted for its scenic beauty. The parkway, which is America's longest linear park, runs for 469 miles through 29 Virginia and North Carolina counties, linking Shenandoah National Park to Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

A Typical Parkway Bridge

The Parkway runs mostly along the spine of the Blue Ridge, a major mountain chain that is part of the Appalachian Mountains. Its southern terminus is at U.S. 441 on the boundary between Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Cherokee Indian Reservation in North Carolina, from which it travels north to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia where it becomes Skyline Drive.

Begun during Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, most construction was carried out by private contractors under federal contracts issued as public works projects- part of Roosevelt's efforts to put Americans back to work and ameliorate the effects of the Great Depression. Work began on September 11, 1935, near Cumberland Knob in North Carolina; construction in Virginia began the following February. On June 30, 1936, Congress formally authorized the project as the Blue Ridge Parkway and placed it under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service.

The Blue Ridge Mountains

Some work was carried out by various New Deal public works agencies. The WPA did some roadway construction. Crews from the Emergency Relief Administration carried out landscape work and development of parkway recreation areas. Personnel from four Civilian Conservation Corps camps worked on roadside cleanup, roadside plantings, grading slopes, and improving adjacent fields and forest lands.

The parkway's construction created jobs in the region, but also displaced many residents and created new rules and regulations for landowners, including requirements related to how farmers could transport crops. Residents could no longer build on their lands without permission, or develop land except for agricultural use. They were not permitted to use the parkway for any commercial travel but were required to transport equipment and materials on side roads.

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians were also affected by the parkway, which was built partially through their lands. Numerous negotiations were held, and agreements were reached. Cherokee leaders participated in the dedications when the Cherokee sections opened in the 1950s. Construction of the parkway was complete by the end of 1966 with one notable exception- the 7.7-mile stretch including the Linn Cove Viaduct around Grandfather Mountain. I didn't drive that stretch this time as I entered the parkway north of it, but I can write now that this stretch did not open until 1987. All in all, the project took over 52 years to complete.

As it turned out, I got as far as the turnoff for Linville Falls. Here, I could see the falls and then be in good position to head back down out of the mountains and back towards Charlotte. So I left the Parkway at the exit for US 221, and followed the signs to the Linville Falls Visitor Center.

The map above, left, shows my route from the Parkway to the Visitor Center. I have also marked the general location of the falls, and the forked hike that I took to see the falls both up close and from a distance. And at right, above, is an aerial view of the falls, and you'll be able to match what you see to the pictures I took. The aerial view approximates the area inside the black rectangle.(Fortunately, physical earth features don't change much even after 40 years, which is why my photos still match up with the aerial view!)

The Upper Falls at Linville Falls

Linville Falls is actually a series of waterfalls located here in the Blue Ridge Mountains; the falls move in several distinct steps, beginning in a twin set of upper falls, moving down a small gorge, and culminating in a high-volume 45-foot drop. It is named for the Linville River, which goes over the falls. Linville Falls has the highest volume of any waterfall on the Northern Edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Linville Falls marks the beginning of the Linville Gorge, which is formed by the Linville River, which continues on after the falls before finally ending near Lake James.

The falls were donated to the National Park Service in 1952 by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. He provided about $100,000 for purchase of the land, including a 1,100-acre area surrounding the falls and a part of Linville Gorge, from Giulia Luginbuhl of Des Moines, IA, whose father, F. W. Hossfeld of Morganton, NC, had purchased the property about 1900.

At one time, the upper section of the main plunge was the same height as the lower section, however, flooding caused the upper section to collapse on top of the lower falls, making the lower falls a considerably longer plunge.

The falls is owned by the National Park Service, which operates the visitor center and several miles of non-handicapped accessible trails with 4 overlooks for the falls. The half-mile Upper Falls trail led me to the top of the falls, where I could see the small twin upper falls and the water spiraling through a small canyon on its way to the main falls.

I took a couple of good pictures of the water spiraling through the narrow stone canyon; those pictures are at left and below:

Another trail, the Erwin's View trail leads to 2 overlooks, the Chimney View overlook and the Erwin's View overlook each of which provided nice views of the river and the canyon. I also walked the three-quarter-mile Plunge Basin Overlook Trail, which provides a view of the falls from the other side of the river.

The Final Plunge

At left is my picture taken from the Plunge Overlook. This is the iconic picture of Linville Falls, and if you visit, be absolutely sure to take this trail.

Finally, I walked along the 0.7-mile Gorge Trail, which branched off from the Plunge Basin trail and led to an area near the foot of the falls. Swimming is prohibited at all areas of Linville Falls, as many deaths have occurred. Acording to personnel at the Visitor Center, the falls were used by local Native Americans to execute prisoners. No one is known to have survived a fall over the final plunge. The following is from the CARNEGIE Hero Fund Commission:

"Charles W. Davis, 23, beekeeper, saved Hallie L. Hartman, 20, from drowning, Linville Falls, North Carolina, August 30, 1928. Miss Hartman fell into the Linville River and was carried 300 feet through swift water and dropped 30 feet over a fall into a pool in which the water was 45 feet deep and very cold. The banks of the pool were high and precipitous. Davis descended high rock ledges with difficulty to a low ledge at the pool, becoming winded. Fully clothed, he swam 40 feet through rough water to Miss Hartman, who was unconscious. Grasping her, he swam 15 feet with great exertion against a strong undercurrent that pulled toward the falls and then swam 65 feet farther to a low point at the bank. As he tried to push Miss Hartman upon the bank, he fell to his knees from fatigue but got to his feet quickly and placed Miss Hartman upon the bank. After prolonged efforts, Miss Hartman was revived."

I really enjoyed seeing Linville Falls for, I think, the first time. I know that as a kid we came to the mountains a few times and drove along the Parkway, and perhaps my family stopped here. But if they did, I was too young to remember much.

My Trip Concludes Back in Charlotte

From Linville Falls, I made my way over towards Charlotte, and decided to stop in Salisbury where one of my college friends, Steve Lee, had gotten a position with a local church as an organist (thus utilizing his degree in Sacred Music from SMU). Another college friend, Ed Shuping, was also in Salisbury so I thought I would get to see them both. I was able to locate Steve with no problem, and Ed was able to come join us for lunch. I have two pictures from that visit:

Ed (L) and Steve are clowning around in front of the house Bethany Methodist provides him. That is the car that the church provided him.

Steve is selling the car I sold to him when I left for Korea. That Oldsmobile was the first car I owned; I bought a new one, a 1971 Dodge Charger, when I returned from overseas. Ed is literally kicking the tires.

When I reached Charlotte, I went back to Mom's house and we played bridge that evening, and the next day drove up to my sister's new house outside Elon, North Carolina. I want to show a bit about where my sister is, but the difficulty I have is that between my visit this Fall and the time at which I am writing this online narrative (mid-2019), a lot has changed, physically, in Elon, Burlington, and North Carolina, with the result that the way one gets to my sister's farm today is much different than it was on this visit.

In 1973, the first part of getting to my sister's new house is the same. One simply takes I-85 from Charlotte to the Burlington area. At Greensboro, I-85 becomes coterminus with I-40, and they both continue east towards Raleigh.

At right is the map showing the first part of our trip. At left is a more detailed map showing how to get to my sister's farm from the Interstate. Greensboro is west of Elon, so we drove east on Interstate 85 to get to the exit for my sister's house (the red line at the bottom of the map). At the time of this visit, one gets to my sister's house by following the blue route. The exit for Elon College (even that name has changed, as Elon College has become Elon University the town has changed its name officially to simply "Elon") puts you on Huffman Mill Road- actually one of the streets which, if you follow it northeast, will take you to Burlington, NC, the larger city just east of Elon.

So just off the exit from the Interstate, you almost immediately have to double back on Garden Road which goes back along the north side of the Interstate and dead ends into South Williamson Avenue. Here, you turn right and head north, go across US Highway 70, continue north and eventually through the center of Elon, and finally, as you continue north/northwest, you will come onto Elon-Ossippie Road (where you reach a red line again) that leads to my sister's farm.

In the first decade of the 21st century, development south of Elon and Gibsonville led to a huge new shopping area along Interstate 85 (Alamance Crossing), and so a new exit was constructed for access to the expressway. At the same time, a bypass was built around Elon, so that so much traffic wouldn't be going right through the center of town and right through the campus. So now, to get to the side of Elon on which my sister lives, you can get off Interstate 85 at that new exit, and take the much-faster bypass around to her side of the college town (green route). This will bring you back to the old route, and you can turn left and once again be on Elon-Ossippee Road. But this new bypass, and the new, more straightforward, and faster way to get to my sister's house is still decades in the future, so today we'll follow the route that I've learned quite well in the few years that my sister has been living where she is now.

My sister has a really nice farm a quarter mile west of Elon-Ossipee Road. She's been in Burlington since college, and when she married Bob they bought a piece of land and built a house on it. That was just last year. Their two kids, live at home of course; Ted is 4 and Jennifer ("Jeffie") is 3.

Judy and Bob bought the land and then built a house on it; the only structure they kept when they bought the property was the old red country barn down by the road. That's where the other residents of the Barbour ranch reside; those would be my sister's horses. (There are also other four-legged residents, but those are dogs and cats.)

There's an aerial view of my sister's property at left, but of course it doesn't show the farm as it looked this year. The biggest change between then and now (as I write this) has been the construction of a new, modern, cement-floored barn up near the house, to take the place of the vintage dirt-floored old one. (I will visit here during its construction years from now, and I created an album page for the pictures we took of it under construction.)

I always like visiting my sister and Bob (and the kids, of course), not least because it is a chance for me to get out of my city environment and into a more pastoral one. It's good for the soul. Mom and I spent the day here with the family; Bob works at his family's drug store, so he didn't get home until the afternoon. The two pictures I came away with were of my niece and nephew.

My Niece, Jennifer (and Mom)

My Nephew, Ted

After a nice visit, Mom and I returned to Charlotte late that night, because my flight back to Chicago was the next day.

On the day I left, I took this last picture before heading to Douglas Municipal Airport for my flight back to Chicago. That's my Mom, of course, walking from the small one-car garage towards the back door of the house where I lived from 1951 until I left for Davidson College in 1964.

A lot would happen to that house in the ensuing years, and my Mom would eventually sell it to move into a condominium elsewhere in Charlotte. Years after that, she would move again- to Dallas, Texas, this time. I would be living there at the time, and could do a better job of looking after her if she were nearby.

But all these developments and more are well into the future, and so if you are going through this album linearly, you can look forward to learning about them.

I caught my mid-afternoon flight home, and by the following Monday was back at work at the Bank.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	October 20, 1973: My Move to Eugenie Square
	September 1-3, 1973: A Weekend in Traverse City, MI
	Return to Index for 1973