Gribblenation

Usually wayfinding signs for towns and cities have a little bit of flare to them - something that is unique to or is specific to the city.  The City of Asheville takes a different approach to theirs. This sign is rather bland.  Black with white lettering - yes a nice ornamental top, but other than that nothing much to it.  However... ...the back of the wayfinding signs is where the real design is showcased.  To the right of the pole, a stained glass window like design with numerous colors.  To the left, a quote from various notables like Carl Sandburg, Thomas Wolfe, or John Muir, just to name a few.  This certainly adds a lot more interest to the sign than directing you to various landmarks. Asheville also has smaller more pedestrian friendly wayfinding signs - similar to those old crossroad signs with arrows pointing in all directions - at numerous street corners throughout downtown.  Like this one in Pack Place: Asheville certainly fou...

The second day of Maggie's and I trip to Asheville was a day at the historic Biltmore Estate .  It was my first time to the famous Vanderbilt home, and had been on my 'to do' list for sometime. My photoset from the Biltmore is on flickr . Maggie has her own blog entry from our trip and it's here. We arrived soon after the estate opened and headed to the home for the main tour.  For the main tour, you have the option of taking an audio tour or walk through at your leisure.  The audio tour costs $10 for a set of programmable earphones that accompanies the guide book.  We both paid for the audio tour and it is worth it if you are a first time visitor.  The tour can take anywhere from 2-3 hours to walk through the home.  You go through three floors of the house and photography is not allowed inside the building. If you want to see the Biltmore home more in detail, there are a number of additional tours you can take on.  One of the more popular t...

With Interstate 376 replacing PA 60 from US 22/30 outside of Pittsburgh to Interstate 80 in Sharon, there was some concern on what a short five and a half  mile section of former PA 60 from I-80 to Business US 62 would be.  A detached PA 60? No. A Business Spur I-80 or 376? Not that either.  Instead the state came up with a never before used route designation, PA 760 .  Highway 760 has recently been signed and Joe Gerard was kind enough to send along some photos to myself and Jeff Kitsko. Prior to the designation change, PA 60 ended at Business US 62 in downtown Sharon.  Here is how it looked around 2001 in a photo from John and Barb Bee. Nearly a decade later, it looks like the US 62 shield is the same, but the PA 60 sign has been replaced with its new designation, PA 760. End and Begin for PA 760 and Interstate 376 are now found at the interchange with I-80. So it looks like I need to get to work on updating this page , pronto.  I haven't tou...

Maggie and I traveled to Asheville for our one year anniversary.  The trip on I-40 was uneventful except for the rain that followed us from Mocksville to Black Mountain.  We stopped at Shell's BBQ in Hickory for lunch.  it's about a five minute drive north of I-40 Exit 126, but it's worth the detour. (Directions head north from I-40 about 3 miles to Springs Rd NE, turn right, Shell's is about 1/4 mile on the left.)  You have to have the Cherry Vanilla Lemon (Sun Drop) Float; it's amazingly good.  And the prices are very reasonable. Sadly, the rain was too hard to get any photos of the old diner and some of the old Pepsi-Cola signs around the restaurant.  From Shell's, we got back on I-40 and headed to our hotel in Asheville. After checking in and relaxing from the drive, we headed out to Pisgah National Forest .  We were going to take the Blue Ridge Parkway to US 276 but concerns of possible slides had the parkway closed from NC 191 to US 276....

Adam Prince, Brian Leblanc, Chris Allen, and I set off Sunday afternoon to see what progress had been made in building the Triangle Expressway (TriEx) since our last official progress tour in April . We were all pleasantly surprised by the progress that had been made. You can follow along using this handy map: A. Triangle Parkway (NC 147 Extension, Interchanges 1-3, 5) The tour started at the I-40 interchange with NC 147, the beginning of the parkway. Construction had really started in earnest on rebuilding the interchange ramps between I-40 East and NC 147. The photo below suggest some of the reasons the exits have to be rebuilt: Though the interchange goes from freeway to freeway, the ramps are designed to be low speed. As you can see on the extreme right there's a stop sign at the end of the I-40 East ramp because there is no merge lane. The ramp is being rebuilt as seen below: The new ramp will be south of the current one and include a new lane for merging. The one problem with...