Today's Drive

Today I had a small trial in Henry County. I took Route 220 South, historically the "Carolina Road," south from Roanoke.
The pictured Marker is near the Franklin/Roanoke County Line; it says CAROLINA ROAD-- Here, through the Maggoty Gap, the Great Wagon Road from Philadephia to Georgia, known locally as the Carolina Road, passes through the Blue Ridge. Originating as the Great Warrior Paths of the Iroquois centuries before, the path was frequently used by the Iroquis before being ceded to the whites in 1744 to become one of the most heavily traveled roads in all Colonial America.

Route 220 took a lot of work to build and there are a lot of steep cuts, all of which are covered in kudzu. Here's a great page about Kudzu, which notes that the CCC paid farmers $8 an acre to plant it in the 30s. Now it is viewed as a pestilential weed, which serves as a natural example of the law of unintended consequences. I should also note that I saw a lot of dead kudzu, particularly in the Collinsville town limits in Henry County-- perhaps the herbicides have gotten more potent than the ones discussed in the linked article.