Luckily the drive to Raleigh isn't very long. Along the way we decided to explore a bit though, and we had Shawn drive us by the office that had hoped to work at (Update to this: ...the office he is going to work at! He got offered the job today and accepted!). After viewing the building, we drove around to some great houses that were right in the area. Here are a few pics.
We then got back on track and headed for the Capitol. We found it with a bit of help from the GPS and parked at a typical day lot. We had read about a historic house walking tour and wanted to take that, but when we went to the location that offered the maps, they didn't seem to know what we were talking about. Luckily, we had seen a number of historic houses on the drive in AND the place that was supposed to have the maps was a museum. This was beneficial because it meant we could spend time checking out the exhibits.
One exhibit in particular caught our eye. Thomas Day was a free Black furniture-maker who created some of the furniture that was in the plantation at Stagville, and a lot of his work was on exhibit at the museum. It was absolutely beautiful. I wish I had taken pictures, but I didn't, so you will just have to imagine the intricate trim work that went onto the various headboards, chairs, tables and shelves he created. He also created some of the most beautiful stairways I have ever seen with intricate, hand carved posts and scroll work along the bottom of the stairs.
After that we left the museum, but Shawn and I will be going back because they had a number of other interesting exhibits. We then headed over to the Capitol and looked at that. Here is a picture of Arianna and Tim in front of it.
Then we went on a hunt for authentic North Carolina BBQ. A neighbor and friend recommended a place, so we walked a number of blocks to The Pit. We did have a hard time initally figuring out where to go.
But then we were heading in the right direction.
Although the outside doesn't look like much, the inside is actually very nice and the food was great as well. Shawn was in heaven with his plate of BBQ chicken, chopped BBQ, mac and cheese, potato salad, hush puppies and biscuits. I am sure we will be heading back there as well.
After that, it was off to another museum, the Museum of Natural History. We had read that they had a fossilized dinosaur heart, but that may be a marketing ploy because we could find no such thing (or we could have just missed it). This does not mean the museum was a disappointment though. We did find a large cougar. Go Cougs!
Those dinosaurs sure had some big feet!
The museum also had a live butterfly exhibit, but we are saving that for next time.
After all of this, we visited the gift shop so Arianna and Tim could get some souvenirs and then headed back to Durham. We then played board games and waited until it was dark to go to a haunted house. The haunted house was good, but not quite as good as the Haunted Palouse back in Washington, so Shawn and I may be on a quest next weekend to find a good haunted house. We then grabbed some food at Ruby Tuesdays and called it a night. We had big plans for Day 3---check out the next blog to find out more!
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