Day 10: Farewell NC, Hello SC

It was a heckuva way to leave NC. Wet shoes and wet dogs, and I just sort of slipped out the back door with about 10% unaccomplished. The rain started as soon as I fired up the engine for the day and only got worse and worse. Finally, I just bailed and headed south to SC where it was no better. At one point in the afternoon, I even did the unthinkable: stopped. Turned the engine off and just waited. Checked email and sulked for about an hour. Then gathered up what was left of my roadside relentlessness and pushed on. Feeling like I got nothing done, I was surprised tonight by the amount of photos I got and how few showed raindrops on the lens. I probably wiped off “Dee’s” eyeball 10,000 times today. Very frustrating. Tonight, there are heavy winds which I’m hoping is blowing all this stuff out of here.

In the morning, when things weren’t so awful and torrential, I took the dogs to a dog park in Charlotte. Barkingham Park was big enough for lots of running. But I’ve really started to notice my dogs are happier and more relaxed when they’re just at some grassy lot somewhere. Nik got chased and bit by a couple big dogs at the Durham dog park a couple days ago. And today, some Huskies were pretty much all over him, nearly biting him. He’s an easy target with his ball in his mouth. Most dogs that are quite passive, become overly aroused and bite around Nik. They’ve never seen a dog that fast and it brings out their inner predator and need to control. My dogs are usually the only dogs running at these dog parks so they quickly get glommed on by other dogs. Even Grem today got roughed up a bit and seemed a little down. So I think we’ll just stay out of this mess for the rest of the trip unless the place is extra huge, deserted, or has a lake or something.

Let’s move on to the photos, shall we? A couple sad theatres to start with. They’re working on the Ansonia Theatre in Wadesboro, NC — but it looks so vanilla-fied now:

Sad, very sad — in Monroe, NC. I believe closed since 1991:

Moving on to Charlotte, NC where most of the day was spent. “The Blvd.” is a nightclub – maybe a theatre originally? Hopefully, someone can help with the history of this place.

A brand new building in downtown Charlotte – the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, designed by Mario Botta. The sculpture was created by Niki de Saint Phalle who is most famous for this place in Escondido, CA:
http://www.agilitynut.com/h/califia.html

I have always loved this green building in Charlotte. Gothic Deco? I believe it’s faced with what they call “polychrome terracotta”.

This one is west of downtown where there are still some motels and drive-in restaurants hanging on:

Just a bit further west – an A-frame used car lot office. I don’t know if that was the original use — but something tells me all those windows were added later:

The rain had the dogs kinda bummed as well. Here both Fix and Grem were damp from an afternoon pee-break and using Nik as a warm sofa. He was too tired to mind. Grip was in my lap where she spends about 90% of her van time:

Further west, to Gastonia. Old-time storefront on Main Avenue:

Also, downtown Gastonia. I have no idea of the original use of this building but I really like the Art Deco details. Notice the stairstep roof on the sides:

And then on into SC for even more rain. The sun was nearly down when I got to York so the colors get pretty funky here. This is probably not the original marquee — maybe not even the original facade for this theatre — but I’m glad that it’s operating: