Friday May 8th Drive the Blue Ridge Parkway to Boone, NC

Today we started out trip towards the Blue Ridge Parkway.  We stopped at the Pilot Mountain visitor center and took some pictures.

We are a bit early for the season, we pretty much have the road to our selves.  The unfortunate side to this is not everything is open yet,  that includes the road.  There is lots of road work being done especially as we get closer to Asheville.  There was lots of destruction from Hurricane Helene in 2024.

Do you know the song "Tom Dooley"?  We visited the spot where Tom Dula (pronounced Dooley) killed his girlfriend. or did he kill her...  Seems it could have been a love triangle.  His girlfriend killed his other girlfriend...

We followed that up with a short hike to the Cascades Falls where the volunteers were working to clear the trails!!  The volunteers were no spring chickens, they'll sleep good tonight.  We also saw 4 ladies slippers which are funny looking flowers, I think they're rare.

Our last stop was at Flat Top, a summer home for the Cone Family later donated to the NPS.  We have a tour scheduled for tomorrow morning.  

https://www.flickr.com/gp/8663407@N07/v970S1n65K

Thursday May 7th Winston-Salem, NC

 We started our day with a drive to Greensboro were we visited the International Civic Rights Museum in the original Woolworth store where 4 black youths sat at the counter to be served in 1963.  

Next was Guildford Courthouse Battlefield from the Revolutionary War.  We did not win this battle but tired the Redcoats out enabling us to win at Yorktown.  It's an interesting story surrounding how this national park came to be.  Some guy bought the land because he knew it was near a battlefield but then he didn't have all his facts right so the battle lines and other facts had to be revised.  At least he had the good sense to preserve it.

Next we drove to Winston-Salem to visit Reynolda, the home of RJ Reynolds & his wife.  We wanted to tour the house but it was be renovated so we just viewed the art. Not that much art so kind of boring.  In between rain storm we toured the gardens so that rescued our visit.  Then it was off to dinner and hotel.

Our hotel was the original HQ for the RJ Reynolds company.  It is an art decor building supposedly an inspiration for NYC Chrysler Building.  It's a great looking building that is part hotel and part apartments with a great basement with awesome workout room, slide, bowling lanes and basketball court.  Sounds amazing but true, we saw it with our own eyes.  The slide was not that much fun.  

https://www.flickr.com/gp/8663407@N07/v970S1n65K

Wednesday May 6th Raleigh, NC

 This morning we started at the Raulston Arboretum, it was nice gardens.

Next we drove to the North Carolina Museum of Art.  It was good timing because it was kind of overcast & rainy.  The museum is two buildings and sculptures on the grounds.  It was a nice visit.

Next was a visit to NC Museum of National Sciences in Raleigh.  As you might have guessed it was teeming with children.  This was also a nice museum and very much geared towards educating children.  By this time we had had our fill of museums.

It was a little rainy but we did visit a couple of parks.  The first park we visited was Pullen Park.  It is large with both an amusement park and regular park toys.

We happen by another of the parks that was on our list, Dorothea Dix Park which has Thomas Dambo trolls.  We were lucky enough to see Daddy Bird Eye as we drove through the park.  There is a family of five trolls in the park.  Do you know about Thomas Dambo Trolls?

https://www.thomasdambo.com/ 

https://www.flickr.com/gp/8663407@N07/v970S1n65K

Tuesday May 5th Raleigh, NC

We adjusted our sleeping & eating schedule a bit so we did not sleep in today.

Visiting this area is known as the Triangle, which is Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill.  It is in reference to the three major universities North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke University in Durham and North Carolina State University at Raleigh.

Our hotel is in Raleigh and today we visited Chapel Hill. We visited the University of North Carolina Botanical Garden and Coker Arboretum.  They were nice gardens.  We were particularly interested in the carnivorous plants.  Pictures are coming.  Some of these plants are only found here, more than half of the species are native here!  We just saw a story on the Venus flytrap on TV, now endangered!

Next we visited Duke U in Durham.  It is a private university with more graduate students than under-grad.  Graduation is this week so the campus was busy.  We visited the chapel, which is the tall tower you see in pictures.  Very nice,  The buildings are mostly Gothic.  We walked around the campus visited the Union, the quad and the library and of course their gardens.

Next we visited Bennett Place where Union Major General Wm T Sherman and Confederate Grnl Joseph Johnston negotiated the surrender mirroring Grant & Lee surrender at Appomattox. Not all general believed the war was over, but Johnston believed it was a lost cause.

We wrapped up our day at the American Tobacco Campus in Durham, which was home to Lucky Strike cigarettes.  Now converted to a community space.  It's still got the smoke stacks (ha ha) but now stores, restaurants and offices, nicely landscaped.  

 

Monday May 4th Fly to Raleigh, NC

Star Wars Day 

It's a travel day, what can I say about that.  

Here are some North Carolina facts:

• Admitted to the Union Nov 21, 1789, the 12th state
• Named in honor of Charles I of England
• Capital is Raleigh, population 516,800
• State population 10,551,162 (2021)
• Known as the Tar Heel State because historically they were the main producer of tar, pitch & turpentine.  Originally derogatory but during the Civil War they embraced it.
• State bird is the cardinal, same as Illinois 
• State reptile is the Eastern Box Turtle
• State flower is Dogwood
• Presidents born here: James K Polk, 11th and Andrew Johnson, 17th.
• The state insect is the honey bee 

The English attempted to colonize in 1585 with the Roanoke Colony.  Virginia Dare was the 1st person born in the new colony.  I read a book about her in 3rd grade and was amazed at her story.  I must have been if I can still remember it.  We will be visiting Roanoke Island near the end of our trip.  This group of people are referred to as "The Lost Colony".

The Province of Carolina was formed in 1629 and became an official province in 1663.  The province of Carolina was split into North and South in 1712 to form the Province of North Carolina and the Province of South Carolina.

 

 

 

Our visit to North Carolina & Virginia

 North Carolina & Virginia

May 4 - 23, 2026

Mon, May 4    Fly to Raleigh, NC

Tue, May 5 - 6 Raleigh, NC

Thu, May 7    Winston-Salem, NC

Fri, May 8      Boone, NC

Sat, May 9 - 12  Asheville, NC

Wed, May 13 Charlotte, NC

Thu May 14 - 16   Wilmington, NC

Sun, May 17 & 18  Kill Devil Hills, NC

Tue, May 19 - 21  Norfolk/Virginia Beach, VA

Fri, May 22      Raleigh, NC

Sat, May 23     Fly home

Our Amazing Great Lakes

 Taken from the Army Corps of Engineers handout

• Four of the Great Lakes are in both the United States and Canada:  Superior, Huron, Erie, Ontario.  Only Lk Michigan is entirely in the US.
• The Great Lakes contain one fifth of the world's fresh surface water - that is about six quadrillion gallons of water!  21% of earth's fresh water.
• They contain 250 species of fish.
• The connected waterways of the Great Lakes are America's largest inland water transportation unit.  They allow shipping to reach the Atlantic Ocean via the St Lawrence River, and to reach the Gulf of Mexico via the Illinois Waterway, from the Michigan to the Mississippi River.
• If all the water in the Great Lakes was spread evenly across the United States, the entire country would be covered in over 9.5 feet of water.
• Mnemonic = HOMES 

Lk Superior

*largest of the Great Lakes

*ranks as the largest lake by surface area in the world

*contains 10% of earth's fresh water

*waves have reached more than 20 ft

Lk Huron

*2nd largest Great Lake

*4th largest lake in the world

*there are more than 30,000 islands in the lake

Lk Michigan

*3rd largest Great Lake

*5th largest lake in the world

*because of its shape the water flows slowly remaining for ~99 yrs

Lk Erie

*4th largest Great Lake

*the shallowest & warmest Great Lake

*wind can have an affect on water levels from the east to west

Lk Ontario

*5th largest 

*smallest surface area of any Great Lake

*the oldest lighthouse on the US Great Lakes

Learn more at www.lre.usace.army.mil