On Sunday morning, it was time to pack up and head back down US 23/441 to GRG HQ.

Here's a sort of "photo essay" of our southbound journey along these 2 multiplexed US highways...

In our first photo from Dillsboro, North Carolina, kindly gives travelers the distance to Atlanta.



As we venture southward, reaching the outskirts of Franklin, notice the reference to Atlanta from the middle big green sign...



Murphy is a little over 50 miles (80 km) from this point, but before you reach Murphy, you will reach Hayesville, the county seat of Macon County, as shown on this segment taken from the 2009-2010 Official North Carolina State Travel Map ...



Since both Murphy and Hayesville are county seats of Cherokee and Macon Counties, respectively, I think that they both deserve to be listed as "control cites" on a big green sign for US 64 westbound. That being said, why did NCDOT give Hayesville the "short shrift"?

After passing under the gantry and past the US 441 Business exit to downtown Franklin, we reach the point where US 23 and 441  separate from its very brief "duplex" with US 64...



Once we loop onto the southbound 23/441, we soon encounter a distance sign to both Clayton and Atlanta...



For the remainder of its southbound journey through North Carolina, US 23/441 is a 4-lane highway with a middle left-turn lane, but once you cross the Georgia state line (the northern end of GA 15), the speed limit decreases from 55 (90 km/h) to 50 MPH (80 km/h)
as it makes its way through Dillard toward Clayton. The road also narrows somewhat, providing only some degree of multilaning until you reach Clayton, where the highway will again become a consistent 4-lane road, with middle left-turn lanes through town and then back to 4-lanes divided as it makes its way southward toward Cornelia.

As for the stretch between Clayton and the North Carolina line, Georgia DOT is planning to make US 23/441/GA 15 a consistent 4-lane highway as part of its Governor's Road Improvement Program (GRIP). However, the advocacy group WaysSouth has expressed issues with GDOT's plans to fully 4-lane this stretch. Please click here to read the article.

As part of a tourism campaign to promote Georgia's wineries, there are "Georgia Wine Highway " signs posted in various spots throughout Northeast Georgia. Here's one of the trailblazing signs directing 23/441 "wine tourists" onto US 76/GA 2 westbound...



At the point where US 23/441 and US 76 form a very brief "triplex" through Clayton notice overhead highway sign (assurance) markers that Georgia likes to use...



Just past the intersection in the background, notice the three (3) green overhead assurance makers for US Highways 76, 23, and 441, but here at the intersection, there is no "EAST US 76" sign with the "SOUTH US 23" and "SOUTH US 441" signs sandwiched between the straight arrow signs. I would hope that GDOT would eventually correct this omission. Yes, only a die-hard roadgeek would notice this, but that's why I'm a roadgeek, y'all!

As US 23/441 rolls along through Habersham County, picking up GA 365 from the western end of US 123, there is something that I have never found on a freeway-style big green sign near its intersection with a connector road leading to GA 197... a high school. Here's what I'm talking about...



Seeing this high school mentioned on this BGS, I wonder what we'd have to do to get such a sign for my high school alma mater, South Gwinnett High School in Snellville. It may never, ever happen, but perhaps you may one day travel down I-285 and find this sign as you approach its interchange with US 78/GA 410 (sign image created with Kurumi Signmaker)...



And finally, we reach the southbound "split" of US 23 (which now has GA 365 with it) and US 441/GA 15 just outside Cornelia. To paraphrase comedian Bill Engvall, "Here's Your Signs!"...



From this point, US Highways 23 and 441 will go their separate ways and not meet again until they cross each other in the south Georgia city of McRae, in Telfair County. US 23 and GA 15 will meet again in the Charlton County community of Race Pond (between Waycross and Folkston) and share pavement along with US 1 all the way to the Florida state line.

As for the above signs, the only change I would probably make would be to add "TO I-985" to the US 23/GA 365 sign.

Like James Taylor, who was raised in North Carolina, I definitely heard the highway calling as I had "Carolina In My Mind", and we enjoyed every moment of it. (BTW, when "Sweet Baby James" wrote this song, he in Spain and felt homesick, hence the song.)


That's it for now. Thanks always for your readership and may you and yours always have safe and fruitful travels along life's highway.

 

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