We packed a lot into last weekend, and then I had my audition for the summer musical on Monday so it was a very full half-week.
We were going up to Asheville to see Daughter in the dance concert on Saturday, and we decided to go to the NC Zoo on the way on Friday afternoon. It shouldn't be too crowded on a Friday, right? Even if it's a beautiful spring day?
Wrong. Last week was spring break for, apparently, a lot of NC schools. We've never seen the zoo this crowded before - even on a Saturday in June. We could only take a few hours of the crowds, but we still enjoyed it.
View from the bridge at the entrance to the African section. We usually go in through the North American section (although the polar bears aren't there right now because their exhibit is being redone), but that parking lot was full! I had forgotten how beautiful the entrance is to the African section. Note the grey shapes on the grass to the left.
They added the hippo sculptures since the last time we were there (they're on the grass to the left in the first photo). The little one looks like it's dancing.
This one is not dancing, but it's adorable.
The elephants, rhinos, and various deer types have a wonderful plains section.
We spent a while watching the giraffes and the ostrich.
The next day after the rainy Duke Gardens day, Dear Husband and I took a walk at Ayr Mount, a Colonial-era home in Hillsborough:
The sunlight was beautiful.
The trail goes through the woods and down to the Eno River. Then it comes back up by the pond and up to the house. This is one of my favorite views anywhere (and it's only 10 minutes from home!) - the view from behind the house. We stretch out here at the end of our walk. All things being equal, pick a stretching spot with a view.
A closer up view of the same scene with a view of the pond
Duke Gardens (a week after the first time in the previous post). I had to go back to see if the azaleas were blooming.
They were.
Viburnum
Part of the azalea circle
The tulips were still blooming.
Squirrel in the Terrace Gardens
Japanese flowering cherry with tulips in the background
Here's how I've been spending lots of my time lately...
A morning at Duke Gardens with my mother and younger son:
A few purple/white irises in the White Garden at Duke Gardens
Black-necked swan
Walking through the Terrace Gardens felt like swimming in color.
Redbud in front of The Bridge
Usually, when a bird flies by, I just stand and admire it - and totally forget to try to take a picture. He flew back again, however, so I barely got this shot. I'm amazed the camera focused on him rather than the trees.
An early rhododendron in front of The Bridge
I didn't take many pictures that day so as not to slow everyone down, but I went back the next day. Interestingly, at 9 am, the only people there were either Garden employees/volunteers or people with DSLR cameras:
This is one of my favorite places to sit in the whole Gardens. It's an un-obvious bench across the koi pond from the Terrace Garden. It's in the shade, and it's got this lovely view framed by the trees. I've rarely seen anyone else sitting there!
I have spent countless hours over many years wandering the back roads of North Carolina. Mary Chapin Carpenter's song, I Am A Town, is amazing in the way that she captures Carolina small towns:
I'm a town in Carolina, I'm a detour on a ride For a phone call and a soda, I'm a blur from the driver's side I'm the last gas for an hour, if you're going 25 I am Texaco and tobacco, I am dust you leave behind I am peaches in September and corn from a roadside stall I'm the language of the natives, I'm a cadence and a drawl I'm the pines behind the graveyard and the cool beneath their shade Where the boys have left their beer cans, I am weeds between the graves My porches sag and lean with old black men and children My sleep is filled with dreams, I never can fulfill them I am a town
I'm a church beside the highway where the ditches never drain I'm a Baptist like my daddy, Jesus knows my name I am memory and stillness, I am lonely in old age I am not your destination, I am clinging to my ways I am a town
I'm a town in Carolina, I am billboards in the fields I'm an old truck up on cinderblocks, missing all my wheels I am Pabst Blue Ribbon, American, and "Southern Serves the South" I am tucked behind a Jaycees sign on the rural route I am a town I am a town I am a town
Southbound
I had I Am A Town in my head all of yesterday (older son and I sang it at one point).
We spent the day at the NC Transportation Museum. One of the first things you pass on the way in to the museum, is a silo with "The Southern Serves the South" painted on it.
"The Southern Serves the South" was the slogan for The Southern Railway (merged, in 1982, into Norfolk Southern). In southern trains, you can still see boxcars painted with the slogan. The museum (more on that later this week) has one of The Southern Railway's diesel engines in the roundhouse.
For this post, I tried to find out anything about how Mary Chapin Carpenter wrote this song so I Googled "I am a town" and "writing." Along with posts about her, I found that a number of writers like to listen to this song while they write. I also found an interview where she said:
...a song that I wrote years ago that started out as a poem. It's called I am a Town. And I had the complete lyric for that for months and months and months and I never could find the right music to go with it and then one day, just kind of stumbled on this very circular kind of moody thing and I knew that I had it. But it was constructed, you know, very separately. Music and lyrics very different times but then they found their way together.
...A song that, for whatever reason, at the end of the final fade, allows you to somehow be more ready than you were before to face the next moment, the next day? It’s a miracle that we ever find one...
I feel all filled up with sunshine. After the gray, rainy weather of last weekend, when dear husband had to work, and being apart all week, we were really looking forward to today. The forecast was sunny and unusually warm (60's). We wanted to go hiking somewhere where there was lots of sunlight so we chose the Butner Game Lands in northeast Durham County (NC).
We usually end up hiking there at some point in the winter. We used to live about 15 minutes away from the Game Lands when our older kids were little. Back then, dear husband would often take older son hiking while I stayed home with napping daughter. We have so many memories tied up with this place that most people in Durham County, even hikers, don't know about.
Older son has a cold so he didn't feel up to going. Younger son said it was too warm (!) so it was just the two of us.
We park across the dirt road from this entrance. There are rarely any vehicles on the roads in the Game Lands. Today, we didn't see anyone else at all. It was so wonderfully peaceful.
I remember one very cold Sunday afternoon when older son and daughter were 8 and 4. We hiked in to this pond, which was totally iced over (doesn't happen that often in this part of NC). We spent lots of time throwing sticks and small stones out onto the ice.
Interesting rainbow pattern on this pond.
The Flat River
The water in the swampy areas was unusually high. I love seeing the water right next to the road.
This area is so open and beautiful, and I never can catch it in a photo. Dear husband said that I needed a person to give a sense of scale.
I thanked him for volunteering.
I liked this line of trees in the water.
A closer view. I love the reflections.
Milkweed seeds. If you pull them out and release them they float away...
I've wanted to try kayaking for years, but it never worked out. We were going to try it at Long Pond on Mt. Desert Island a few years ago, but the weather turned bad the afternoon we had time for it. I was determined to try it last fall.
We were able to arrange for a lesson/kayaking session with Frog Hollow Outdoors on the last day they were open for the season at the Eno last October (yes, it's taken me this long to get around to posting it). The guide/teacher we had was wonderful and patient. If you're in the Durham area and interested in kayaking, I highly recommend them!
The teacher taught a bit on land, and again in the water. He's in the red jacket, a bit to the right of the center. We invited some friends along so we had a good group. Dear husband is in the yellow kayak, and younger son is to his right.
Heading up river.
It was an unusually cold day for October. It was in the upper 40's, but we were well bundled up. The sun came out about 2/3 of the way through. There are so many things I love about kayaking. I like being closer to the water than in a canoe. I like the shallower areas you can get into. I also like being more independent and more maneuverable.
Kayaking also gives you a different perspective. I've hiked over this bluff before, but I hadn't gotten this view until kayaking.
Heading back. We'll definitely be back here to kayak, but I'm also looking into other places to try. I definitely want to kayak on the French Broad River in Asheville and maybe on the New River in the Blue Ridge.
On the second to last day of our vacation, we were going from Blowing Rock, NC to Asheville, where we were going to have dinner with daughter. It had rained overnight, but the clouds were starting to break up, at least in Blowing Rock. We were trying to decide whether to take the scenic route along the Blue Ridge Parkway, or, if it turned out cloudy and drizzly in the higher elevations, whether to just take I-40 and get there an hour or two earlier.
There were snow flurries on Grandfather Mountain so that made us more eager to go on to find more interesting weather. It started sunning up west of Linville Falls so we decided to head down the parkway the rest of the way.
We hadn't planned on stopping at Mount Mitchell on this trip. It probably would be all fogged in, and it definitely would be cold. However, from one overlook, we saw that it had rime ice on the trees so we had to go check it out.
First, we stopped to eat our picnic lunch at an overlook. Since it was in the 40's and windy, I didn't make anyone eat outside like I did on my birthday when it was in the 50's. Here's the view we had:
We were right, though, because Mount Mitchell was fogged/clouded in. You can see the rime ice-covered trees peeking out from underneath:
The drive up to the park:
The beginning of the Old Mitchell Trail, which goes from the park entrance to the top. We didn't go to the top that day. Younger son sprained his foot last summer so he still has to be careful.
At the park office and along the Commissary Road Trail, the cloud was just high enough not to totally block the view. Even though it was wintery where we were, the distant hills were still covered with fall color.
It's been a weekend of festivals. Saturday, older son and I went to the Pride Parade in Durham (more about that in another post if I get to it)(If I don't, photos will eventually show up on our Durham blog). Today, younger son joined us for the Carrboro Music Festival. Younger son and I only stayed for a few hours. Older son was there for about seven hours!
I won't blog about everyone we heard. The festival had 25 performance venues and over 180 groups. When you walk down the street, one band fades into the distance as another grows louder. Some of the setups are quite simple. The Auto Logis/Peck and Artisans/Carrboro Music stage is just the parking lot under a tarp:
We enjoyed hearing Eminent Smith here. This was the first group that younger son wanted to stop and listen to (we met up with older son later).
Here's Hamlet's Dead, one of the songs we heard them sing:
After listening to them for a while, we headed back to meet older son at the Town Commons stage to see Stranger Spirits perform their show Rock Laboratory. Stranger Spirits has been a favorite of all of ours since older son introduced us to their music a few years ago.
After thoroughly enjoying their performance (and keeping myself from dancing along - this didn't seem to be that kind of a crowd), we headed on to the Open Eye Cafe to hear Crystal Bright and the Silver Hands. They were the opening act for the first Paperhand Puppet Intervention performance we went to in August (it got rained out halfway through). You have to like a band that titles a song Corpus Callosum:
The Open Eye was far more crowded than I've ever seen it (I have no photos of their performance because I hardly saw them), and I can only stand crowds for so long. Younger son was getting tired so we headed home. I took the long way to a further bus stop so that we could hear more bands on the way.
