North Carolina - Tar Heel State
Our trip to North Carolina gave us the opportunity to, once again, spend time with good friends. We started out in the Raleigh/Durham area where Dick and Marilyn Kozacko live. They gave us a tour of the area and we especially enjoyed our visit to Duke University. The chapel, which seats about 1,800 people, stands 210 feet high. It is built in the Collegiate Gothic style, characterized by its large stones, pointed arches and ribbed vaults. It contains a 50-bell carillon, 3 pipe organs and gorgeous stained-glass windows. After a delicious brunch at the Washington Duke Inn, we walked through the gardens and came upon a large wedding party taking the obligatory wedding photos. It was a warm, sunny day and the gardens and fountains offered many photo opportunities.
In Raleigh, we visited the State Capitol which boasts a neoclassic marble sculpture of George Washington, but it doesn’t look like George at all! The pose, style of clothing and hair looks more like a Roman emperor. How strange and we wondered who decided to approve that. Another statue, however, in front of the restored capitol building, shows James Polk, Andrew Jackson and Andrew Johnson in more realistic poses, with Jackson straddling his horse. Also in Raleigh we visited the North Carolina Museum of History, ironically in a striking contemporary building, located in Bicentennial Plaza. Its mission is to provide a comprehensive history of the state of North Carolina by collection, presentation and exhibition of historic artifacts, across many genres.
Leaving Raleigh, we drove to Winston-Salem where we visited the Old Salem historic district. Originally settled by a Moravian community in 1766, it features a living history museum of the people who lived there. We found an unnamed child’s gravesite very moving. The oldest standing African American Church in North Carolina is here as well as the Tavern in Old Salem, where we enjoyed a great lunch. A restored Moravian organ still works, and we were treated to a concert. Among other restored buildings is the oldest giant roadside coffee pot. Coming upon it is startling! It’s known as the “Mickey Pot,” in reference to tinsmith brothers Julius and Sam Mickey who made it to advertise their business in 1858.
From Winston-Salem, we entered the Blue Ridge Parkway and drove south to spend two nights with Chris and John Wash. Chris and I became close friends when we attended UCSB from 1976 to 1979 where we earned Master’s Degrees in Counseling Psychology and certificates in School Counseling and School Psychology. Once Chris retired from LA Unified School District, they moved to Asheville where they built a beautiful home near Biltmore Lake. They took us to see some interesting sites, including a fantastic Lego Exhibit in the Botanical Gardens. We saw a fire hydrant, a giant bee, a butterfly, a life-size gardener and cows, even a lawnmower, all made from Legos. We were lucky to be in Asheville in October so we could enjoy the brilliant fall colors. We enjoyed a memorable lunch at the historical Grove Park Inn, which is a 4-star hotel originally built in 1913. Reluctantly, we said goodbye to Chris and John, and their loveable dog Boomer, on a chilly October morning.
