A Visit to North Carolina and Other Points East
August 18th, 2006,My family and I are back from an enjoyable two-week trip to North Carolina and Washington, D.C. It involved some work as well as some vacation.
We spent the first week in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the second in the Outer Banks (along North Carolina’s coast), Virginia, and Washington. Raleigh, along with the cities of Chapel Hill and Durham, is in the “research triangle.” The name comes from the research universities in those cities: North Carolina State University in Raleigh, the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and Duke University in Durham. Few metropolitan areas in the country have a comparable concentration of research universities - certainly none in the Upper Midwest - and this is sure to become an even more important area in the future.
The weather was extremely hot the first week, though no hotter than Minnesota when we left on July 30. Temperatures hovered around 100 in the first days of August, with heat indexes around 110. With the heat, I felt myself move more slowly - almost as if I were in slow motion. Things cooled off a little by the second week in August. Coincidentally, Twin Cities weather guru Paul Douglas says that the places with the best climates in the lower 48 states are North Carolina, San Diego, and New Mexico. I’d drop North Carolina from that list because of its humidity and add a few more places in California.
I had never been to North Carolina except to drive through, so I was glad for an opportunity to learn more about the state. Raleigh, the largest of the three urban areas in the research triangle, is a pleasant, progressive city on the rise, with some excellent dining and plenty to see and do. While in Raleigh we stayed in the Velvet Cloak Inn, which I recommend for its location, charm, value, and hospitality.
Here are a few highlights from the trip:
• I asked about North Carolina authors at a local public library and at a good used book store in Raleigh called The Reader’s Corner. I came up with this list of authors that I considered reading while on the trip: Charles Chesnutt, Thomas Wolfe, Reynolds Price, Clyde Edgerton, Anne Tyler, and David Sedaris. I eventually bought Reynolds Price’s 1975 novel The Surface of Earth, the first of a trilogy about two families in North Carolina and Virginia. Instead of reading that book, however, I read about North Carolina’s colonial history in another book from the 1970’s, North Carolina: A Bicentennial History (1977), by William S. Powell. It’s a nice short history of the state. From it I learned that the state was fairly isolated until the twentieth century due to its difficult-to-navigate coastline, which has no deep-water port; the mountains to the west; poor roads; and a lack of bridges over rivers, sounds, and swamps.
• The crape myrtle was in bloom while we were traveling and was new to my northern consciousness. These beautiful southern trees can have flowers in a variety of different colors, including white, pink, and purple.
• The mosquitoes were bad throughout our trip, even in the middle of cities. They appeared to be much smaller than the mosquitoes I’ve experienced in the Upper Midwest and as a result were quieter and harder to notice until they had already taken a bite. These were truly “stealth” mosquitoes.
• Of Raleigh’s many museums, I saw only the North Carolina Museum of History. The highlight of the museum was an exhibition called “The Carolina Mountains: Photography of Margaret Morley,” containing beautiful photographs of life in the Appalachians at the beginning of the twentieth century. I had hoped to learn more about the history of slavery while here, but I was surprised to find nothing on that topic - a curious omission.
• I had better luck learning about slavery after we left Raleigh and drove east toward the ocean. We stopped at a former plantation and state historic site called Somerset Place, where a guide gave us an excellent overview of the plantation’s history. Unfortunately, we had a two-year-old in tow, so we had to cut our visit short. We noticed that the guide referred to “enslaved persons” rather than “slaves,” a change that seems to better affirm the humanity of those unfortunate souls.
• We spent two nights in the Outer Banks as well, North Carolina’s popular beach resort area. The Outer Banks are long, narrow islands running north and south along much of North Carolina’s coast. We enjoyed the beaches, and our daughter particularly appreciated a beach on the “sound” side - the quieter western side of the island, which has shallow waters and no waves to speak of. We got to see the sun rise over the Atlantic from our hotel room balcony.
We also greatly enjoyed the Wright Brothers National Memorial at Kill Devil Hills, where Orville and Wilbur Wright flew the first airplane. I was greatly impressed by their dedication to their cause. They spent years learning how to design, fly, and maneuver gliders - even before they added an engine into the design. They also created their own wind tunnel and did research to come up with the best wing design. Going to the top of Kill Devil Hill, where the Wrights practiced gliding, provides good views of the island.
We wished we could have stayed more time in the Outer Banks, as we only got to see a small fraction of what it offers. Be warned, however: this is an expensive place to visit during the summer.
• We also stopped briefly at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. We told our daughter that this was a “history park.” I had been here as a child and on this visit was impressed with what I saw. I’ve heard some criticism of Williamsburg as artificial and antiseptic, but overall I think it helps people to learn about the past. Run by a non-profit, it seems to be a nice alternative to more commercial vacation destinations.