North Carolina - Day 10 - to Raleigh

Rolling View Campground, Falls Lake State Recreation Area, Durham

Saturday, 8 July 2023

The official address of the campground where I'm staying is Durham, but to me it seems closer to Raleigh, or maybe about equidistant between there and Durham, not counting some smaller towns in the area.  Anyway, I decided to go to Raleigh today, to see the state capitol and run some errands around town.

today's route

The easiest route to town from the campground led me past a statue I associate with Scottish Rite children's hospitals, but I didn't see a sign saying there was a hospital there so I looked it up.  And learned that the statue marks the location of the local Scottish Rite chapter, not a hospital.  But I have no idea why they used the children's hospital statue instead of a marker with the group's name on it.

I stopped at a PetsMart, then at a U-Haul for propane, then at an ABC liquor store (they're all state-run).  I also managed to find gasoline for $3.09/gallon - about the cheapest I've run across lately.

My next stop was supposed to be a Wegman's grocery, but once there I got an unpleasant surprise.  They had a decent-sized parking lot, but the entire lot was cordoned off with those clearance bars like you see at fast food drive-in windows.  This one was labeled "7' 11" Clearance," which was several feet too low for me.  I drove all around the entire lot, but the entire place was surrounded.  A sign said this limit was "for the convenience of customers," which I found irritating because it wasn't convenient for me - though it did ensure I wasn't a customer.  There was an open lot, but it was on a different level and I'd have had to climb a bunch of stairs to get to and from the store, and besides not wanting to drag myself up them I didn't want to drag a bunch of groceries either.  So chalk up one disgruntled would-be customer.

From there we stopped at an off-leash dog park that was very nice.  It was quite large with lots of trees, and Dext met a few dogs there.  

While we were stopped, I got on the computer to find another grocery store, and we went from the dog park to a Harris Teeter.  On the way from there to the state capitol, I passed the William Peace University, which was a new one on me.  They say they were founded in 1857 and it's a nationally ranked private college that used to be related to the Presbyterian church.  Out front I saw a sign: "Esperanto Spoken Here."  I couldn't remember what that was either but learned online that it's a made-up language, well over 100 years old, that was intended to be used as a universal 2nd language.  

When I got to the capitol, I was really disappointed to find that it was impossible to get an unobstructed view of it from any angle.  I drove all the way around it, only to find scaffolding and other construction impediments.  Too late, I saw online that renovations started in May and will go on until they're done.  I would have liked to find a parking place so Dext and I could walk around, because I saw quite a few statues on the grounds.  But not only couldn't I find a spot, but also I wouldn't have been able to get close to the building, so I didn't stop.  But here's what it should have looked like.

North Carolina State Capitol

The cornerstone for the building was laid by North Carolina's Grand Master of the NC Masonic Lodge in 1833, soon after the original capitol burned.  This building (above) was completed in 1840 in the Greek Revival style and has been in continuous use ever since.  I think the 4 sides are roughly equal in size, and the dome is copper.  An attractive building.

One of the statues on the grounds looked like it had several people together, so I looked it up and learned it's a statue of the 3 US presidents North Carolina lays claim to: Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, and James Polk.  They've also got a large statue of George Washington and a large Vietnam War memorial and several others scattered around the grounds.

A short distance away, I came to a low clearance bridge: 12' 4".  Fortunately, I could fit underneath that level because I didn't have a Plan B route.

I passed Wiggins School of Law, which I hadn't heard of and was founded comparatively recently - in 1976.  Most law schools are part of a larger university, but this one seems to be standalone.

And nearby I passed the attractive campus of North Carolina State University.  It's a land grant college, founded in 1887, and is now the largest school of higher education in North Carolina.  It was originally established as NC A&M, with programs for military and agricultural and mechanical training in addition to the liberal arts.  Some years ago it somehow became part of the University of North Carolina, but students, alumni and faculty were so peeved about that fact - and the intent to rename the school as "UNC at Raleigh" - that the name finally became NC State University.  Interesting how attached people can be to their school.

From there, I aimed for Sam Jones BBQ - and found it.  And I really wanted to stop because it has a good reputation.  But it sits at the corner of 2 narrow streets, one of them a hill and both of them requiring parallel parking.  Which I might have been able to pull off, but even in the middle of the afternoon lots of other people were stopped there too, and parking places weren't available for a vehicle my size.  Plus the restaurant didn't have a parking lot of its own as far as I could tell.  So regretfully I gave it a miss.

We started back on the drive to the campground - took the best part of an hour - arriving at 3:15.  I spent quite a while trying to find any part of the campsite that was level and was only partly successful.  It was a big site and I tried all kinds of positions, none of which really worked.  But that's what we had.

When I took Dext out, I found that while we were gone, someone had taken the tag I'd gotten when we checked in the first day - the one they want posted at the site.  I didn't care but also didn't want trouble from the campground, so I called the office and their solution was that I drive back to the entrance and get a new one.  I said I only had the one vehicle, was already parked, and if they wanted me to have a tag they could bring one by when they made their rounds.  I also said that I didn't see why they'd decided I'd checked out when I still had several days paid for.  I pointed out quite a few campers had only one vehicle and might leave a campsite empty for a short time.  Deaf ears is what I think they had.  Anyway, they never brought a substitute tag.

On our walk, Dext and I found it to be so very warm and humid that it sapped our energy and - for me - my breath, so we cut it short.  I still had to cook more rice for him anyway.  And in fact, it was so humid it finally gave up and started raining at 6:15.

I had bags of stuff from my various shopping forays but didn't even finish emptying them because I was too tired.  This left the cabin absolutely chaotic because of so many things being out of place.  In a small space like this, already cluttered with living, moving beings, I keep my sanity by trying always to put things where they belong.

Tonight I was cooking the rice and warming up Dext's refrigerated chicken and my food and feeding all the critters and trying to fix myself a vodka tonic but having no extra counter space and couldn't put anything at all edible on the table because the kittens would grab it and I was having muscle spasms in my lower back every time I straightened up after bending and the glands in my throat were swollen and sore and I felt dirty and hot and needed a shower (which would likely have made me feel hotter and which I couldn't bring myself to do with no privacy) and it was all very uncomfortable.

Strange day.  But I liked Raleigh.