Apple Country Tour: 2018 Edition

About a month ago, I made my annual trek up to Henderson County, North Carolina to buy some apples and do a bit of exploring along the way. This year, much like my recent trip to Renno, I decided to revisit some of the places I've been to before to see what, if anything, has changed.

Staton's Grocery

Staton's Grocery is located just south of Tuxedo on N.C. 225 (Old U.S. 25) near the intersection with Green River Road. The store was built in 1920 by Ulysses Staton who also operated the store until his death. His wife, Effie, then operated the store until her death in 1981. The building later used as an antiques store, but is currently unoccupied. My first visit here was in 2012, and looks much the same except the Dr. Pepper sign once above the left window is now gone.

Tuxedo Community Store

Continuing up N.C. 225, the old Tuxedo Community Store building sits across the street from where the Tuxedo's textile mill once stood (now the site of Tuxedo Park). This building once served as the mill's company store, then a grocery store, and more recently an antiques store. The building currently sits empty, but looks to be in excellent shape:

Tuxedo Elementary School

Just up the road on N.C. 225 is the old Tuxedo Elementary School, built in 1924 and closed in 1994. When I visited in 2014, the school was abandoned and up for sale. Sometime since then, the school has been sold and renamed the Tuxedo School of Innovation and Preservation.

When I pulled into the driveway, a large green bus was parked in front of the school. The bus prevented me from getting a good photo of the school, yet at the same time I'm glad the school building has found a new use.

I first visited here in 2014, and back then it looked like this:

Zirconia

The old store across the street from the Zirconia Post Office I first visited in 2012 remains empty:

Then it was up the steep and windy Pinnacle Mountain Road to visit SkyTop Orchard to buy my usual 1/2 bushel of Granny Smith apples. I've been here many times, and the place remains the same, including the crowds.

I managed to catch the checkout at a relative lull. The orchard was busy, but unlike my last visit there were no school buses full of children from different states being led around the orchard.

Jump Off Rock

The record warm September delayed the leaf changing season by a few weeks. A month ago, the leaves were still mostly green in the Upstate of South Carolina, and I was hoping I could see some color up here in the Hendersonville area. Jump Off Rock overlook in Laurel Park, at the end of Laurel Park Highway, was the natural place in the area to check. When I visited last year, I didn't see much color, and this year I didn't much either.

Wrapup

Yesterday, I finally finished the last of the 1/2 bushel of Granny Smith apples I bought at SkyTop during this trip a month ago. During the past month, Flickr announced changes to their free and paid options that I find unappealing. I will probably pay for one year to continue on Flickr. During that year I will be editing my posts to change my photo links away from Flickr so when I don't pay next year my photos will remain intact. I'll be uploading my photos to Google Photos from now on.

In the past month, I've attended some meetups with some fine people and made some new friends (one I'm in almost daily contact with and hope to see outside the meetups). I didn't take many photographs (wasn't there for that), but I did take a few. The Visit to Table Rock - Nov 2018 album contains a few photos I took at a November 10th meetup at Table Rock for a walk around the lake and a bluegrass jam. Nine Times Preserve - Nov 2018 is from a November 18th meetup at Nine Times Preserve where we hiked up to an overlook on Cedar Rock Mountain, then down the mountain to a parking area, then down a path along an old lumber railroad grade in Nine Times Forest back to the parking area.

I also took two vacation days off with the intent to visit some waterfalls before the leaves dropped, but wouldn't you know the area received heavy rain on both of my vacation days.

I usually post my trip report within a week, but stuff happened and then I forgot about it. I've uploaded my photos from this year's Apple Country Tour to an album on Google Photos.