Oh, no....Pouring rain at 6:15 am.... 
Well, we get up at 7, and decide we'll take our time (right, my aunt is on a schedule, you can set your watch by it!).... And we hit the road at 9am as usual...
We finished the first 50 miles in rain and fog, much differently from the way we started them. We had occasional glimpses of color: brilliant flashes of orange, yellow, reds and burgundy. But the sun was not going to come out until we were well south of the Parkway.
As we continued south on Hwy. 441 I was able to reassess my original observations on the real estate signs, or lack thereof. It was pretty much as I remembered. As we drove off the Parkway but continued the drive down out of the mountains of NC, there was a scattering of sales signs for residences as we passed through small towns. Very desirable properties for folks from big cities or down south (Florida). But as the terrain flattened out in Georgia, the signs disappeared except for a commercial site every once in a while.
While in NC, I also kept an eye out for editorials or articles on real estate. My hometown paper runs articles multiple days during the week, but I in all the papers I bought, and I bought one each day I was on the road, I only found one article. It ran in the Asheville, NC, paper in the business section and was an opinion piece on the wisdom of buying real estate in this market as an investment as opposed as a flip and sell if you're in the buy it, fix it up and sell it business. Good article, but the only one I saw in any of the papers I bought along my route. Again, this is not a scientific study!!!
One really interesting item I noticed was in USA Today, Wednesday, Oct.17, issue. "Home builders' pessimism growing. It is a report on one of the indexes watched by Wall Street and the Fed asn they attempt to project what the national economy is doing. The National Association of Home Builders said its market index which tracks builders' perceptions of conditions and expectations for home sales over the next six months.... "fell to the lowest point since it began in 1985!"
It gave me pause when I read that.... What I thought was: Is this a legitimate measure of what is happening in the homebuilding market? After all, of course they would be pessimistic after having a raging market for 2-3 years.... And then it disappears...?
Hummmm..food for thought.... During final drive home...
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