North and South Carolina
(Sightseeing)
January 17, 2018 - January 20, 2018
We made a mad dash down I40 to North Carolina to get over the mountains before it could snow again. We generally try to stay off the interstate highways, preferring the backroads where you can really see the country. But...sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do!
We stayed fairly near the town of Columbus, NC in order for me to check for the land records confirming that my great grandmother had purchased a log home in Tryon, NC. We thought we'd be there two days so I could find the records and hopefully the home. We got in to the campground fairly early so I quickly drove to Columbus since the courthouse was still open.
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| The courthouse in Columbus, NC |
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In the belly of the beast - the land records!
Just love these old grantor/grantee books! |
I found the records quite easily and wrote down a hodge podge of a description of the land. It was full of degrees and minutes in this and that direction for so many feet from this marker then more degrees and minutes in another direction for so many feet to another marker and on and on! My first thought was I'll never find this property! Luckily three streets were named in the description so I concentrated on those. I quickly drove to Tryon and using my phone found the 3 streets. I drove around a hill which took in two of the streets mentioned but found no log home. Since she owned the house from 1937 - 1942 I had to consider that it might not exist any longer - probably replaced by one of the many huge homes I was seeing. I decided to drive up the last street which appeared on the map to be a dead end. I got to the end and still came up empty. Big sigh! As I turned my head as I was backing up I spotted a log home! How had I missed it! The snow on the ground indicated no one had driven up the driveway for at least several days so I drove up and parked so I could get a picture. I got a little braver and walked around the house taking picture and discovered it was empty inside. I was certain it was the correct house from the stone patio which I had seen in pictures of the house. From some ladders and a big pile of trash bags I came to the conclusion that it was being painted inside and perhaps prepared for sale. I still have no idea why my great grandmother purchased the place. She was a widow at the time, living in Michigan and already in her mid 70's. Perhaps some friends had a place nearby and persuaded her to buy it. I don't suppose I'll ever know the reason but it was fun to find it.
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| The front of the house. |
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| The left side. |
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| The stone patio off the left side. |
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| The house from the patio. |
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| The right side of the house from the back. |
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| The garage and shed. |
Mission accomplished! We could move on without staying two nights. We drove to Seneca, South Carolina the next day and along the way we visited the "World of Energy" at a Duke Energy Power plant in the area. It was marked as a GEM in our AAA tour book and it sounded interesting.
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| This is the Duke Energy Nuclear Power Plant near Seneca, SC. |
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| The three nuclear reactors. |
Their exhibit shows how energy is produced from various sources such as hydro, coal, natural gas, solar, wind, nuclear, oil, etc. It's a self guiding tour with excellent exhibits. I found the graph below very interesting. It shows where the various states in the U.S. got their energy from Jan - May 2015.
I'm sure this is a bit hard to read but I found it so interesting I wanted to share it. The pink color is nuclear energy. South Carolina (far left) is the state with the highest amount of it's energy coming from nuclear energy. The rest of it's power comes from coal (black), natural gas (orange), a very small amounts from hydro and "other." Washington State is the last state with any amount of nuclear energy. It gets most of it's energy from hydro power (blue), a wee bit from natural gas (orange) and an even smaller amount from wind. The only state with any significant amount of power coming from oil (red) is Hawaii. Right next to Washington you can see the states with most of their energy coming from coal - West Virginia, Kentucky and Wyoming being the top three.
Coming from Washington and having visited the inner workings of several dams, I understood how energy is derived from the flow of water. Basically it turns large turbines which rotate inside of a stator, creating electricity. The same would be true for wind machines, the blades are turned by the wind rather than by water. Until I went through this exhibit I never really understood how coal, natural gas, nuclear and oil are used to produce energy. It's basically the same process for all of them. Coal, natural gas and oil are all burned and the resulting heat is used to create steam which turns a turbine inside a stator and creates electricity. Nuclear energy creates it's own heat via fission of nuclear material. Just like with coal, gas and oil, the heat creates steam which turns a turbine inside a stator, creating electricity.
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| Diagram of the Duke Energy nuclear plant. |
The only energy source that works completely differently is solar. All of these methods involve turning a turbine or rotor inside a stator. Solar energy is the only type of energy that does not involve turning a device inside a stator.
One of the biggest issues with nuclear power is what to do with the spent fuel. Many countries recycle and reuse it. The U.S., for whatever reason, does not. The issue has been kicking around for years and I expect it will continue to do so. It is often referred to as nuclear waste but an employee I talked to told us it is wrong to call it waste because it can be recycled.
We didn't expect any adverse reactions from visiting this nuclear site but sadly it did have an effect on Laura. When she came out of the building I think you'll see that she had visibly shrunk.
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| Will she ever be the same? |
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