drove through a small town in north carolina called henry river mill village. it was about an hour's drive from asheville (give or take a few minutes depending on how 'sightseey' you are, which i am very much a rubber necker so it took me a tad longer) . this town is offically abandnoned so directions to the location were a little iffy. i actually just plugged it into my gps and low and behold i drove right through it. don't blink, you'll miss it...i almost did. it may seem familiar to you because it was used as a filming location for the first hunger games movie, district 12's the seam...the home of katniss and peeta. yes, yes, this is why i chose to visit, but when i arrived, i couldn't believe my eyes. quaint little town sitting there on the side of the road, minding it's own business. not a soul in site. this is actually private property as told by the signs and one very large sign stating that there were tours that were offered and you should call the number. i didn't. it was sunday morning and no one was around so i took it upon myself to be nosy. but not too nosy, i didn't go in any of the buildings because again, it was private property and i didn't have bail money.
the first thing i noticed when i pulled into town was this bakery. yep, peeta's bakery. signs and all, although i am thinking the signs are kept there just to make the tourists happy. i parked in the parking lot (the one that said no parking? yeah, that one) and rumaged around to see what props i could find. before my visit i found a lot of pictures of dorky tourists holing a loaf of bread, standing on the front stoop of peeta's family's bakery. all i had was some shoprite bread in my trunk, so here's my dorky picture with the (half) loaf of bread.
right across the street (if we are being honest, it wasn't really a street, more like a paved pathway) was the famous girl on fire's house. after walking around the many homes with a picture of her house in my hand, trying to determine which one was 'the one', it came to my attention that this was the only home that didn't have a caved in front porch or the windows broken out. i circled the entire town before i realized this, and was kicking myself for not noticing in the first place (but at least it was a nice stroll). upon further inspection (and by further inspection, i mean peeking in the windows) you could see a quiver sitting in the front room of the home...prop. yep, this was the place...it also had a padlock on the door. guess they don't want anyone to steal the quiver? there was literally nothing else in there. but i am such a dork, i still got excited when i spotted it, even though i know it's not the actual quiver katniss owned (or was it??).
i strolled up and down, keeping to the sidewalks and roads, considering it was private property i didn't want to push it. it's not a very large town, but there are quite a few buildings to look at and i did peek in a few other windows. most of the porches were caved in or collapsing and some of the buildings had 'tags' on them. i read online that the elderly gentleman that owns the town doesn't want the tourists on the property because of this reason. so if you decided to visit, do your best not to leave your mark and don't take anything. leave it there for the next fan to see. it's only fair. after making my way up one side of the street and then the other...i found this. a little doorway that led to where? i have no idea and i wasn't about to find out either. i imagine it was maybe a root cellar or something normal like that, but standing in front of it didn't seem normal at all. there was actaully a tunnel and there was a house in the general vicinity but not exactly close by so i can only make a guess. it was just about big enough for a gnome to fit.
after about an hour of roaming about a very nice police officer rolled up and came to a stop. just when i though i was in heaps of trouble, he rolled down his window and says, 'i gotta ask, what's with the gnome?' so we had a good laugh, i gave him my card and he was cool enough to let me take a photo on the hood of his car.
visit this town if you ever get the chance. it was great. since it was a sunday morning on my visit, it was very quiet and i was able to get some awesome pictures. like i said, there is a tour that's offered but you have to sign up for it ahead of time, if you look around on the internet you will find a few differnt tours offered. there's a phone number on the 'hunger games site' sign, but as long as you aren't looking for any trouble, you won't find any. if you have any questions of info, please feel free to contact me! on to my next adventure...
