Doreen and Laura's Excellent Adventure: The Tar Heel State

North Carolina - part three

(Sightseeing)

May 13, 2018 - May 19, 2018

It's mid-June and once again I find myself way behind on this blog. I wish I could figure out how to make this thing write itself.

Drove west from the Outer Banks to Raleigh where we camped at the state fairgrounds. It's often hard to find a campground anywhere near a big city so this campground just to the west of the city really worked in our favor.

The first place we visited was the Historic Oak View County Park, a restored 1830 era cotton farm which was in operation for over 150 years. Here we learned about cotton farming.

Oak View Farm as it appeared in 1900.

Above (front) and below (rear): Oak View Farm today.
It has undergone extensive expansions and renovations through the years.

This was once the farm's kitchen. It was separate from the house as was quite customary in the south.
This kept the heat from the cooking out of the home and lessened the danger of fire burning down the entire house..

Water tower.

1900 carriage house later converted to a garage is in the process of being repainted.
It was so hot the day we were there - what an awful job to be doing in such weather.

Livestock barn (above and below)

Laura enjoys some one on one time with the farm's nubian goats.

Forms of cotton

Growing cotton is a year round job.

Picking cotton was very labor intensive - hence the use of slaves to do the job.

Even children worked in the fields.

Removing the seed from the cotton boll was a manual task until Eli Whitney developed the cotton gin (short for engine).

Once the cotton was "ginned" it was pressed into 500 lb. bales.

Laura and a bale of cotton.

The Duke Family homestead in Durham, NC provided us with a look at tobacco farming. If the name Duke sounds familiar, it should. They were major players in the tobacco/cigarette and textile industries and they were major philanthropists - i.e. Duke University. Washington Duke started growing tobacco before the Civil War. He was drafted into the Confederate Navy, captured and imprisoned in Richmond, VA. After the war he was released in New Bern, NC. He walked 134 miles back to his farm were he took up where he left off.

Washington Duke Homestead.

Tobacco seeds are very small (think poppy seed size) making it difficult to handle.

The leaves at the various levels of the stalk have differing value due to damage from the ground.
They also "ripen" at different times creating the need to pick them throughout the growing season.
The leaves at the bottom ripen first and are the lowest grade while the leaves at the top ripen last and are the highest grade.

You can hear about it from tobacco farmer himself.

Looks like the last of the leaves are being picked by this young boy.

Nothing left of the tobacco plant but bare stalks.

Preparing the leaves for drying.

Manufacturers make tobacco into numerous products such as snuff, smoking tobacco, cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco, etc.

The wonderful North Carolina Museum of Natural Science had many exhibits that caught our eye.

A large exhibit about arthropods was very educational.

Dinosaurs once roamed the southern U.S. - specifically a dinosaur called Acrocanthosaurus which means high spined lizzard. They looked quite similar to a T. Rex but they inhabited different regions and are much rarer than T. Rex.

Similar but different. I wouldn't want to meet either one in person!

Acrocanthosaurus skeleton

North Carolina has an abundance of natural resources.

Various types of granite, marble and other stones quarried in NC.
Aren't they beautiful! I loved the way they displayed these.

Various types of wood from NC forests include ash, hickory, beech, oak, holly, sourwood, sweet gum, pine, walnut, cedar, chestnut and sycamore.

Five giant whale skeletons really demonstrated how different they are - especially their heads.

Humpback whale

Sperm Whale

Right Whale

True's Beaked Whale

Blue Whale

The museum was just full of interesting exhibits.

A nice explanation of cloud formations.

The North American portion of a map on migration paths of animals, birds, sea life.

You can find gemstones in North Carolina!

Rubies and saphires

Emeralds.

A special exhibit on women in Science titled "Beyond Curie" was really exceptional. It highlighted 40 women who have made extraordinary contributions to science. I wish I could show every one of the 40 here. It just goes to show that women can do anything - but you already know that!

Enjoyed the Joel Lane Museum House (aka Wakefield). It is perhaps the oldest house existing house in Wake County, NC dating back to 1769. Col. Lane was a prominent statesman in colonial NC and actually facilitated the location of NC's capital on his land in 1792.