Wilmington to Asheville Road Trip
Driving from Wilmington, NC to Asheville, NC | Town Creek Indian Mound State Historic Site | Morrow Mountain State Park | Fort Dobbs State Historic Site | Bunker Hill Covered Bridge | January 2022
On Saturday morning, it was time to end our short stay in Wilmington and begin our next adventure. We went for one last walk downtown to pick up some breakfast, then packed up the car and began driving West. For the drive, Curtis had chosen an audio book with a dramatic reading that we both really enjoyed called “Sleeping Giants” by Sylvain Neuvel, so much so that we listened to the whole book and then immediately downloaded the second in the series for the rest of the week.
Today’s destination was the city of Asheville, NC. Curtis had a few weeks before his first power plant assignment, so instead of going right back to Iowa, we decided to take advantage of this weird nomadic state we find ourselves in and hang out in areas that have both lots of outdoor activities and slightly milder weather than the Midwest. Asheville seemed like the most obvious place to start, so we reserved a rental house for a week and decided to plan out the rest of the month as we went along.
We had about 6 hours of driving, and plenty of easy stops to break it up and enjoy the trip. Curtis planned a route that went North around Charlotte and gave us 7 new counties along the way. We took US/I-74 West to Ellerbe, then NC-73 North to our first stop of the day: Town Creek Indian Mound State Historic Site.
Unlike the mounds of Ohio, which belong to the Hopewell Culture, the Town Creek Mound was built much later as part of the Mississippian Culture, and was reminiscent of Emerald Mound which we saw in Mississippi, both in form and function. The site is small and remote, but still enjoyable to walk around.
From here we continued further North and West across the Pee Dee River and towards Morrow Mountain State Park on the banks of the river/reservoir. We briefly considered hiking to the top of Morrow Mountain, but with the drive expected to go well into the night, we opted to drive to the top instead. From the top we had great unobstructed views of the Uwharrie Mountains, which was more of a view than Curtis ever got during his hike across them.
Again, we didn’t stay long, and continued further west to Statesville where we stopped at another State Historic Site: Fort Dobbs. This site was established in 1755 during the French-Indian War at the request of the North Carolina Governor to protect the Western frontier. The fort didn’t see any action during that war, but during the following hostilities between the Cherokee people and British settlers, a small battle occurred just outside of the fort. And once peace was made on the frontier, the need for the fort was gone, and it was consumed by the wilderness – a wilderness that is now long gone as today the recreated blockhouse is located on the edge of suburban development.
We enjoyed walking around the reconstructed building and through the little woods, playing Pokemon Go and reading about the history before jumping on I-40 for the final stretch to Asheville. But not before one final stop at North Carolina’s second historic covered bridge (Curtis had seen the only other bridge during his hike through the Uwharrie’s). We hiked the short trail to see the bridge, then another trail to overlook the bridge and stream. Finally, we finished our drive to Asheville as the sun set, and settled in to our rental house for the week.
