24 February 2017

Morehead City houses

I'm in the air this morning, getting ready to arrive at Paris CDG airport (if all has gone well). I'll have to let my eyes adjust to the architecture and landscapes of France today, as I take the train from Paris down to Tours and then a car journey to Saint-Aignan.


Meanwhile here are some photos of houses that I took in Morehead City, N.C., a couple of days ago. The one above is an especially pretty old-style house in the Promise Land section of the town. It's probably about 100 years old.


This second photo, above, is another place of about the same vintage as the first one, but slightly more modest. Actually, all these photos are ones that I took in the old Promise Land neighborhood, where fishermen and whalers and their families settled after a series of disastrous hurricanes between 1890 and 1905 rendered uninhabitable the coastal islands where they had lived for generations. Storm surges pushed waves of salt water over their land, killing their crops and gardens, making the land infertile, and spoiling their wells.


Nowadays, people are building houses like the one above in Morehead City. It's on stilts so that the living quarters won't be damaged if floods or storm surges roll over the area.


This last photo shows an old-style house with its wrap-around porch. It's seen better days. Behind it is one of the new houses on stilts. These are about 100 yards (meters) from the salty sound and its tides. You can see how low to the ground the old house is.

13 comments:

  1. The house on stilts loks Great

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  2. So here I am in baggage claim at CDG airport. Good flight overall, but we had a rough ride toward the end as we flew over southern Wales and England. Once we crossed the Channel and were down at 5,000 feet of altitude over France, it smoothed out.

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  3. Welcome home Ken!
    Is that an original tin roof on the very low, old style house?
    And, have you been re-united with your belongings.....yet?

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    1. I imagine that metal roof dates back to the 1920s or '30s. The house I grew up in had a roof like that, but it had a roof made of wood shakes when it was built in about 1910. The shakes were still there, under the sheet metal.

      I do have all my luggage and I waltzed thru customs.

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  4. The old houses are very like those where I grew up in Australia.

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  5. Glad everything went well. Now you'll have to readjust to time, landscape and people.

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  6. Welcome back to France :)
    I never knew anything about North Carolina until you started showing pictures and talking about your trips. Thanks -- I love these houses, and the whole feel of the seaside town.

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  7. i wondered if that storm over england would mess with your flight....ugh....glad you and your luggage made it

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    1. Some of those moments of extreme turbulence early this morning were downright scary.

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  8. Glad you are safely back. I'll be living in a cottage like the first photo by winter. Those tall houses are not built for seniors- too many steps! Did you use CDG wifi to send us messages on your notepad?

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    1. My sister tells me that many of the tall houses on stilts have built-in elevators. And I did use the free CDG wifi to send e-mails and put up blog comments. Also the free RDU wifi.

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    2. An elevator would be helpful, but expensive. Wifi is great to have when traveling.

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  9. I am reminded of my summers when growing up in North Carolina .. the beach houses and the wonderful beaches. This has been very enjoyable for me to see these photos and remember :)

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