Sign Find or A Major Sign Foul?

While touring the construction progress of the Triangle Expressway with Bob Malme today, we came across this well - NC 540 detour shield.

Not sure where to begin with this: a rare orange NC shield? the hand drawn diamond? the lack of an official detour posting? The reason for the orange shield is a detour for Davis Drive and Kit Creek Road to NC 540. Currently, the interchange with 540 and Davis/Kit Creek is closed for construction of the Triangle Expressway.

And here we thought the possibility of the Toll NC 540 shields being purple was out there.

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Interstate 40's Tumultuous Ride Through the Pigeon River Gorge

In the nearly 60 years Interstate 40 has been open to traffic through the Pigeon River Gorge in the mountains of Western North Carolina, it has been troubled by frequent rockslides and damaging flooding, which has seen the over 30-mile stretch through North Carolina and Tennessee closed for months at a time. Most recently, excessive rainfall from Hurricane Helene in September 2024 saw sections of Interstate 40 wash away into a raging Pigeon River. While the physical troubles of Interstate 40 are well known, how I-40 came to be through the area is a tale of its own. Interstate 40 West through Haywood County near mile marker 10. I-40's route through the Pigeon River Gorge dates to local political squabbles in the 1940s and a state highway law written in 1921. A small note appeared in the July 28, 1945, Asheville Times. It read that the North Carolina State Highway Commission had authorized a feasibility study of a "...water-level road down [the] Pigeon River to the Tennessee l

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