A Trip Along Alt 74 in NC

 From the twists and turns of Ms. Pac-Man at the PinBall Museum ....

To the twists and turns of Alt. 74 between Asheville and Chimney Rock, NC.

This was always our favorite route from Lake Lure area to Asheville.

The Mister loves driving the curves.

Although Google Maps showed the route being open, 

we may or may not have slipped through a barrier 

showing the road was closed to all but local traffic.

Well, we were kinda local, right?! 

Areas of the road were reduced to a single lane due to undermining of the road

from the waters of Hurricane Helene.

There were three areas manned controlled by stoplights. 

You could see some of the washed out areas,

but what you couldn't see, unless you knew the area, were the washed away buildings.

Many of them.

Parts of the highway have been shored up and rebuilt.

Other parts have been created along new paths where what remained of the

valley was too steep or narrow to carve out a new section of road.

The road used to be on the far left of the picture, 

near the buildings you can see. There's not enough room to remake the road there. 

You can see a bit of the former highway on the left, 

its destination is now covered by a dirt slide. 

The reshaping of this valley, 

the moonscape that has been left,

is hard to stomach. 

One wonders if its beauty will ever return....

probably not in my lifetime.

And to think that this is only one small area of North Carolina 

that suffered such destruction from the storm. 

The story is retold in countless other villages and towns that were

flooded and lost structures and infrastructure.