We were ready to leave our hotel because our room smelled of cigarette smoke with an undercurrent of something rotting. I guess being in the heart of tobacco country, we shouldn't have been surprised.
From just north of Charlotte we drove about an hour north to Winston-Salem where checked out Wake Forest University. My brother, Jason, went there for a couple years before finishing at Georgia Tech. We told the boys how Uncle Jason had gone to Wake Forest and we had fun looking at all the places wondering if Uncle Jason had spent any time there. Helen and the boys were somewhat confused by the idea of the "Demon Deacon" mascot. I told them, "Yes, he's a church preacher, but he's mean looking because you don't want a wimpy mascot." It was a nice campus and a cute town with lots of beautiful "Southern Living" houses and tree lined streets for Helen to ooh and aah over.
After Wake Forest, we drove about an hour west to Chapel Hill to look at the University of North Carolina. We all agreed that Carolina Blue sure is a beautiful color. The boys liked looking at all the students, but said they felt weird walking around campus being that they were so young. We assured them that it was fine. It took us some time to find parking, but after several "haven't we already passed this" moments, we found some parking near the library.
We walked around the Student Union and Library areas and enjoyed the art gallery in the Student Union. We checked out all the cool Carolina blue wear in the bookstore. Derek said he didn't want anything with school names on it because people always have something to say about it and it gets annoying. He mentioned that's why he doesn't particularly like wearing his Georgia Tech pullover. I told him I felt the same way.
It's usually pretty easy to find the general area we're looking for, but finding the exact location or finding parking is often times much harder than I think it should be. When you have limited time to see all the things we want to see and when you know you're in the general area, it can be really frustrating. I find myself wondering if the Frommer's writers have the same problem. If they do, they never seem to mention it in their writing.
We drove across campus to the Dean Smith Center to see where Michael Jordan and other greats have played.
We had lunch in Chapel Hill at Mama Dips Country Kitchen. We struggled deciding between Mama Dips, Allen and Son Barbecue, and Crook's Corner. Mama Dips was good, but not so good that we didn't wonder if the other places might have been better. It's hard when there's so much good food and you can only eat so much of it.
We drove through downtown Chapel Hill on the 10 mile drive north to Durham, the home of Duke University. The Chapel Hill downtown area was nice. It reminded a lot of Athens, GA. Along the way we saw plenty more beautiful "Southern Living" homes with wraparound porches and beautiful landscaping.
After a driving tour around the Duke campus we stopped at the Duke Botanical Gardens. It was almost evening, but it was still sweltering hot. The gardens offered some welcome relief with a nice tree canopy and lots of water features. The gardens were beautiful and the kids had fun running around looking for wildlife.
We drove around looking for the Duke Chapel. It took us way too long to find parking and then find the chapel, but it was worth it. The chapel is incredible. I'm not a church going person, but churches are some of the most beautiful buildings. It seems like they just don't build things like the chapel anymore.
After the chapel we drove to the basketball arena, Cameron Indoor Stadium, and the football stadium, Wallace Wade Stadium. They were setting up for some sort of fancy soiree at Cameron, but we were still able to go in and look around and take some pictures. There were some tents set up in front of Cameron in honor of K-Town, the name given to the tent town that pops up during basketball season when the students camp out for long periods to secure their basketball tickets.
On the way out of Durham we stopped by the Magnolia Grill for dessert. We had read that the New York Times said that "If she had made pie, order it; you will never eat better." Unfortunately, there was no pie on the menu that day, but the desserts we ordered were still really good.
After dessert, we headed about 3 hours north to Richmond, Virginia. The boys were ready to quit all the stopping so they could finish their movie, "The A-Team". I had hoped to get into Richmond earlier and do a driving tour of some things but we were too late. We were planning on going to King's Dominion Amusement Park in Doswell, about 45 minutes north of Richmond, the next day and I didn't want to fight any Richmond traffic in the morning so we decided to stop about midnight just north of Richmond, in Ashland, about 5 miles from Doswell.
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