Knotts Island, NC trip, July 14, 2012, Part Two.

With my good camera long dead, I resorted to my phone camera to take all of my pictures. Of course, as my luck would have it, my phone's battery quickly drained into the red zone, so my photography became slightly lazier.

There's a fence here.

Boarding the ferry vessel M/V Governor James Baxter Hunt, Jr.

Rules and regulations of the ferry system and the current terror threat level.

Setting off on the forty-five minute ferry ride.

We're still surrounded by rain.

The ferry vessel turns around shortly after leaving the dock so its loading ramp faces forward. Heres a look back at the Knotts Island dock. It's also raining again, and did so intermittently throughout the ride.

The waters of Currituck Sound from inside the passenger lounge.

A map of the state is also posted in the passenger lounge. You can see yours truly in the reflection.

The map includes some factual tidbits about North Carolina's highway system. From Murphy to Manteo and. . .well, just Manteo.

Knotts Island's schools are on the mainland, so students use this ferry to travel back and forth to school. Naturally, there are some rules to be followed, except the one about not using Comic Sans MS in a public place.

The ferry's commissioning plaque. 

The sun wants to come out.

Land ho! 

Preparing to get off the ferry.

NC 615 technically stretches across the ferry route and to the end of the ferry landing parking lot in Currituck, but it's not posted anywhere on the mainland. It connects to this secondary route, the number of which escapes me, which is a loop of NC 168. It seems fairly logical and easy to extend NC 615 across this secondary route for the rest of the quarter-mile or so to NC 168 so that 615 could connect to another primary route, but we're not NCDOT.

Northbound on NC 168, the Caratoke Highway. It is four lanes for its entire length.

An NC 168 shield near Moyock. My phone's battery was getting into the danger zone (cue Kenny Loggins), so my photography became slightly lazier and sparser.

There is a rumble strip on either side of the center turn lane, but not on the shoulder.

Entering the state of Virginia and the City of Chesapeake. The 168 number now occupies a Virginia primary route shield. There is a large, busy service station and restaurant located along the border.

Looking back into North Carolina.

This sign has seen better days.

No comment.

The state line passes through the building, so it's possible to cross the state line and even stand in two states at the same time. Prices for items such as cigarettes are posted for both states, with checkout counters located in each state. The fuel station is located in Virginia and the restaurant is located in North Carolina. One can also purchase various Outer Banks-themed merchandise.

Resuming our trip northbound on VA 168.

Virginia likes to put shields in its mileposts.

Approaching the south end of the tolled Chesapeake Expressway. VA 168 Business (Battlefield Boulevard) is there as an alternative.

I don't know what font this is supposed to be, either.

The tolled expressway begins here. The toll plaza is just around the curve. We'll take VA 168 Business/Battlefield Boulevard north to Centerville Turnpike, then back to VA 165 (where it's Mount Pleasant, then North Landing Road), back to where we started. At this point, I gave up photography to conserve my phone's dying battery, but this YouTube channel has some video of our trip up VA 168 Business and the Centerville Turnpike.

Knotts Island, NC trip, July 14, 2012, Part One.

So this weekend, the proprietor of Flashing Lights and I met up in Virginia Beach to take a trip down the geographic enclave of Knotts Island, North Carolina, to check out NC 615 and the Knotts Island-Currituck ferry. I also finally decided to buy a new camera, the Nikon One high-end point-and-shoot (with interchangeable, manual-zoom lenses) that Ashton Kutcher promotes. Hey, if The Guardian promotes it, it must be good, right?

We begin on Princess Anne Road when it's VA 165 southbound, shortly after it drops from a major six-lane arterial to a two-lane road. The clouds are ominous and if you look really closely at the background, you can see what's coming.

Princess Anne Road here is in the process of being expanded from two to four lanes with turn lanes and a median. An extension of Nimmo Parkway is also being constructed as part of this project. You may have noticed the rain. It only gets worse. 

Near the Virginia Beach Municipal Center. A wild windshield wiper interferes with the shot.

Approaching the junction of VA 149 and 165. Princess Anne Road goes left onto VA 149 and VA 165 from here is called North Landing Road. The junction banners seem a little extraneous with the directional arrows here. 

A strange font on the street blades at the intersection of North Landing and Princess Anne. It almost looks like all-caps Comic Sans MS. One would hope they would at least have the sense to not use that font in a public place, though. At this point, I started taking video with my new camera, which took us from here to the version of Princess Anne that leads to Knotts Island all the way to Indian River Road. I'll upload it to my YouTube channel, but the rain was terrible almost the entire way and the windows were also badly fogged for most of the video. 

Resuming photography, we come across an error VA 615 shield near the settlement of Creeds, six miles from the North Carolina border. This road is neither VA 615 nor SR 615 anymore. 

Now at the North Carolina state line and the northern terminus of NC 615. The state line sign assembly has definitely been replaced since the last time I was here. 

The view back into Virginia also seems to have changed a little.

For now, NC 615 is known as Marsh Causeway. We'll see why shortly. There used to be mention of NC 615 in shield form near here, but the first mention of the state route now doesn't occur until the town of Knotts Island proper. 

NC 615 passes through Mackay Island National Wildlife Refuge for its first few miles. After this, my good camera died and I started having to resort to my cell phone for pictures.

We begin the exercise in phone-camera photography by demonstrating why it's called Marsh Causeway. There are other times where the water is within inches of lapping against the road itself. 

The first southbound NC 615 shield. Marsh Causeway ends here and becomes Knotts Island Road. The state route is well-signed as it winds around the island on a couple different alignments. To the left, Knotts Island Road continues back into Virginia briefly before dead-ending.

Knotts Island is a sleepy town that's the more obscure of the North Carolina coastal communities. 

NC 615 moves onto South End Road. The rain tries to pick up again.

NC 615 turns right onto Ferry Dock Road. South End Road dead-ends shortly after. 

The Knotts Island Ferry dock is somewhere here.

These signs have seen better days.

The ferry schedules. You can also follow the NCDOT ferry service on Twitter.

Since we arrived way too early for the ferry, I walked back down Ferry Dock Road to check out some of the signage. 

I don't know why one sign is blue and the other sign is green.

The first NC 615 shield headed northbound. Despite how faded they are, these signs are less than ten years old. 

A look back at the empty ferry dock to close out part one.