Morrow Mountain State Park

Morrow Mountain State Park is in the central Piedmont part of North Carolina.

My parents used to take me camping there starting when I was around 8 years old. It's always been one of my favorite places.

Most park buildings, campgrounds and roads were constructed in the late 1930's by the Civilian Conservation Corps.

The main lodge and headquarters building was built in 1938. I remember as a kid thinking it was one of the greatest places I had ever been in. It's nothing near the grandeur of the massive lodges of the western US National Parks, but for a state park, it was, and still is, darn nice. The walls are field stone and rough hewn wood. Wide plank floors and interior walls; large front porch and back porch; steep roof; and a very large slate patio in the back.

My job inspecting state owned buildings took me there yesterday. On prior inspections, the lodge was noted as needing a lot of restoration and repair work. Serious damage was noted due to termites and water damage to the floors and sill plates. The roof needed replacing. And the previous inspections only noted items needed to keep the building from further deterioration.

I was pleased to find that the lodge had undergone a complete restoration. All the structural, electrical, mechanical, and plumbing problems were fixed or equipment replaced. And the building structure and envelope systems have all been restored and upgraded.

The floors are beautiful. Windows and doors have been replaced with thermal efficient units made to fit the architecture of the building. The new roof looks great. All interior fixtures were either restored or replaced with period style fixtures.

The total renovation cost around $600,000.

It was money well spent.

Too add to the pleasure of seeing the restoration, the leaves turning colors are peaking right now in this part of North Carolina. The roads are winding in the low Uwharrie mountains and you drive through a mad mixture of yellow, orange, and red leaves. Plus, the weather is unseasonably warm. On days like yesterday, my job rocks!

Today's work took me to the Southern Correctional Institute; a medium custody women's prison and a minimum custody men's unit; along with inspecting the Department of Transportation maintenance compound.

Not quite as nice as inspecting park buildings. But still, some of the older structures are in very good shape and it's nice to see the workmanship that went into construction of some of the older buildings.

The two medium custody prisons I've had to inspect this week were larger regional facilities. Each was over 200,000 square feet. Plus additional buildings within the compounds. These take a lot of time and effort to do a complete job. This week also included 3 minimum custody compounds, numerous NC DoT compounds and individual offices, the park, and a National Guard Armory. Tomorrow will be a historical site education center and a university field research complex.

Getting out of the office and into the field is nice. But, it's non-stop physical work with a lot of walking and climbing (on roofs for example). Usually as the week progresses, like today, I'm getting pretty beat.

I'm too tired to go out and get something to eat.

There's a banana and apple on the dresser from this morning's hotel breakfast and some milk in the mini-fridge.

Looks like dinner to me.