THE ROAD TO EDEN (OR ELMO?) (Mark)

Surprise!  I know it has been quite some time since I last posted, but life can get in the way of travel.

We finished all the work on our temporary house, bought a permanent house, and moved our stuff there.  Notice I said "moved" our stuff to the permanent house.  We still have to get things out of the boxes, etc.

We were blessed to get two great offers on the house we were selling in the first 24 hours!  So we had a chance to get on the road.

No adjustment of your monitor is needed; those are the true colors above.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day with perfect temperatures and a light breeze.

Cheri had the big atlas on her lap and we were avoiding anything that looked like a busy road.  It is our favorite way to get just about anywhere.

You will be seeing several buildings being reclaimed by nature in the next few posts, some much more so than others.  Many of these were old tobacco drying sheds.  It was hard to tell what some may have originally been constructed for.

We knew we were getting near Eden, and then we saw this:

This is one of the seven drive-in movie theaters still operating in North Carolina. 

The double feature scheduled for Friday night was the newest in the Ghostbusters franchise and Anyone but You.  No speakers attached to your car; you tune in to radio 88.9 FM.

For our literary-minded friends, these pictures are from a garage a little east of Eden. 

We will be going back to Eden and spending several days taking pictures and walking the town, and then do a couple more blog posts.

Once you get a little north and east of Eden you enter Virginia.  As we wandered along the little country lane we came across this establishment:

As best I can tell it is still in business.

When we lived in Monterey I had a wonderful friend, an amazing photographer named Tommy.  When I see a place like this I can still hear his voice:  “This place could use a coat of paint.”

The road we were on was wide enough for two cars to get past each other, but only if one vehicle moves onto the shoulder a little.  In other words, perfect!

Just down the road from the equipment-sales emporium was this barn.  It is still in use; notice the hay roll.

But nature is winning.

We went just a couple of miles down the road, drove around the corner and saw the Brooklyn Tobacco Factory building:

Built in about 1855, it only operated until about 1860, then again briefly in the 1880-1881 time frame.  It sat abandoned until 1994, when it was purchased and rescued by Virginia and Mack Gentry.  It was listed on the National Historic Registry in 1996.

Not far down the road from the Tobacco Factory is Carter's Tavern and Inn:

It operated from the about 1802 until 1843.  The road we were traveling followed the old stage route from New York to New Orleans.  As the stagecoach driver was approaching, he would ring the bell once for each passenger he had who wanted a meal while the driver tended to the horses.

George Washington is thought to have stopped and had dinner here on a trip he made to visit General George Carrington of Halifax.

The inn was rescued in the early 1970’s and converted to a private residence.  On the property is a small cemetery:

I had a wonderful conversation about the history of the inn with the very gracious owners, and they told me about how they had been working to find the descendants of those buried here.

This scene was down the road a little:

I really am including it for my friend Ross, an outstanding photographer and friend who loves pigs, and puns.

Not necessarily in that order.

Cheri had been very excited to see that we were approaching the "dot" named Elmo.  ("Dots" are what she calls ghosts of former communities that still show up on maps.)  This is Elmo:

She wanted to entitle the post for the day "We Found Elmo!"

It was only after we got into our lodging for the night that we realized that we were thinking "Waldo," and "Elmo" is a Muppet from Sesame Street.

Clearly, we don't have children.