Day Trips in North Carolina
May 16, 2024
July 2–3, 2024
Tim Dwight and I did a day trip to Raleigh on the train in May. A few pictures from that trip can be seen here. Pictures from our July 3 visit to the Sullenberger Aviation Museum are posted here.
My Davidson classmate Peter Guerrant usually visits me for July 4. This year he stayed for a few days, and we visited a few places. He had mentioned wanting to visit the grave of Peter Stuart Ney, who among other things designed the seal for Davidson College. I’ll let you look up on your own information about legends and rumors relating to his past in France. So on Tuesday, July 2, we set out for Cleveland, NC, where he is buried in the cemetery of Third Creek Presbyterian Church. From there we headed to Spencer, NC, to visit the North Carolina Transportaion Museum. I had hoped to include lunch at Lexington Barbecue that day, but they took that week off. I decided not to take the long but faster way to Cleveland via I-77 to I-40 to US 70 and tried to wend our way over back roads. The phone navigation kept trying to send us 30 miles back to the interstates, and I wound up driving on even more adventurous roads than I had intended.
The drive to Spencer was less of an adventure, following a US highway and city streets in Salisbury and Spencer.
The state transportation museum is located at the site of Spencer Shops, where Southern Railway’s steam engines were maintained and repaired for many decades, starting about 1896 with a roundhouse from 1924. Now it features planes and trains and automobiles. The Back Shop, pictured below, has been opened to display exhibits since the last time I had been there.
The governor’s limo.
The turntable at the roundhouse
The cab of one steam engine is open to visitors.
A replica of the Wright Brothers’ plane
Mail was sorted while en route.
In the break room is a working Cheerwine machine. I cannot recall the last time I saw one. Of course I got a Diet Cheerwine.
I like this shot of the roundhouse and turntable.
The cars and small airplanes used to be housed in the building seen at a distance on the left above. It still has some cars.
The Lincoln Continental already had the iconic spare tire holder on the back.
Back outside are a few more train cars.
The next day we visited the Sullenberger Aviation Museum in Charlotte. ->