On Saturday, rbyers_nc and emonk and I did a little rural explorin’ in Franklin County (NC). It was one of those days that just begged for some outdoor activity. Mid 50s, not a cloud to be seen anywhere. I shot a message out to the RSG and got a couple of hits from folks who were interested. This group is ALWAYS up for something…I mean, if you wanna shoot the grass growing, somebody will show up. Anyway. We met near Wake Forest at a shopping center and hooked up Richard’s gps to hit the road. Blindly stumbling is my preference on things like this but, I’ll admit, the gps did provide a bit of comfort in knowing the roads that we were approaching and having the ability to pin the sites we found for exploration at a later time. We chose an interesting sounding first turn off from the main road. Clifton Pond Road. One would guess that maybe the name springs from the fact that there is a pond on the road somewhere. And one would be right. But that’s for later…
Our first real discovery was the old house. Set back from the road about 50 yards in a newly cleared area of what used to be thick brush and fairly aged trees is this skeleton of an old house. No siding and various stages of repair and disrepair, it begged a look. We wandered around for about an hour and a half and wondered aloud (and I’m quite certain, to ourselves) for most of that time at just what was going on here. It was obvious the structure had been built long ago. Floor joists were about 6 inches thick, nails had flat tapered shanks and thick flat heads. No signs of plumbing. But, there was recent evidence of renovation attempts- added support underneath some of the floor joists, crude electrical connections, etc. And of course, the newly graded land around the structure (as in the “past few days newly graded”)…curious. But the siding is gone, there’s no sign of any recent construction activity. Did the money run out?… Did the owners meet with an untimely demise…? Who knows? But what an interesting place to explore.
We captured a bunch of photos and started to leave when Richard saw the stones of an old cemetery off the back edge of the property. Dating back to the early 1900s and earlier, many of the stones had no markings at all… about 30 minutes later, we’re outta there.
Our day ended with a trek a bit farther down the same road where we found remnants of an old waterwheel and 2 more abandoned structures, but neither of those was near as interesting as the first one we stumbled onto. Get out and explore YOUR area. You never know what you’ll find.
Hasta.
