North Carolina

I was planning on going to DC to visit some friends for the 4^th of July. One of my friends I reached out to about staying with her told me she was actually going down to North Carolina to visit her aunt, but that I should come down to DC and join her on the trip to NC. Thinking about my goal to have a meaningful experience in all 50 states, and knowing I haven’t been to North Carolina before, I decided to go for it…

Such a good choice! I was promised a relaxing weekend, and an adventure. Seem like an oxymoron? It wasn’t! (and the promises came from two different people :)

The relaxing part:

-       Private pool in someone’s backyard

-       BBQ at someone else’s house with A/C and HGTV (and knitting…)

-       A walk around gorgeous garden’s at Duke University

The adventure:

-       Watching fireworks in downtown Raleigh on a roof top

o   This included climbing some ladders and only partial firework views

-       More hours than I care to count in a bus/ car

On our way from the parking deck to the building to watch fireworks from, we saw an outfit that rivals what I see regularly in NYC:

And after telling the others in our group about it, someone spotted her in the crowd below about 20 minutes later! Amazing – where’s Waldo anyone?

It turns out that Duke University has an amazing campus. Their gardens are beyond gorgeous

  

And their chapel is beautiful. I liked some of the things that their pamphlet said:

“I want the central building to be a church, because such an edifice would be bound to have a profound influence on the spiritual life of the young men and women who come here.” –James Buchanan Duke

Almost a century after Duke’s dream became reality, the Chapel continues to be the central building whose purpose remains, “keeping the heart of the University listening to the heart of God.”

North Carolina was beautiful, the people were so friendly, and I didn’t really get sunburned there:

But I did get burned on this trip here:

But that’s a story for another day….