The Cobbles of Wilmington

On the way back from the ocean yesterday, we stopped to walk around Old Wilmington. It has benefitted from a fairly active historical foundation. Ian would be pleased. It seems to have just the right mix of hip and quaint. Lots of art studios, record shops, good restaurants, and nicely preserved old buildings. But what struck me the most were the old streets. At the bottom of a hill, on the banks of the Cape Fear River, the dowtown has a sweet network of cobbled roads and narrow alleys. Most impressive is that each one of them seems to feature a different type of cobblestone. From old bricks of various sorts, to brick shaped stone, to plain old stone, it's like a cobblestone museum. Needless to say, if the FGBC were here, we'd be racing these at night. It would be a skinny tyred spectacle. The president would no doubt wreck on the train tracks at some point. And the Impaler would get ten flats. It would be awesome. Or maybe it's just that it was Tuesday and I was feeling especially nostalgic for the Tuesday Night Ride.