A Record of a Lifetime of Wanderlust
Spring Lake, North Carolina In my goal to visit every state park in North Carolina, I dropped by Spring Lake in late December to visit Carvers Creek State Park, one of the newest state parks in the North Carolina state park system, which opened in 2005. The park includes Long Valley Farm, which was the…
Atlantic Beach, North Carolina One of the state parks that I have visited most often in North Carolina is Fort Macon State Park. Many times growing up, we would go to Emerald Isle, Salter Path, or Atlantic Beach for a family vacation. Without fail, on many of these trips, we would spend a day, or…
Raleigh, North Carolina How do you build a building to run a state government that you know is going to be too small? I often wonder this about North Carolina’s Capitol building, especially when compared to the Capitol buildings we have visited around the country. North Carolina stopped using its capital building in the 1960s…
Raleigh, North Carolina When people ask me about what’s the best thing to do in North Carolina’s Capitol City, one place that I usually recommend is the North Carolina Museum of Art. The art museum has a very wide collection of artwork from around the world, assembled over time thanks to generous donations from the…
Raleigh, North Carolina When I took a recent trip to Raleigh, I was not expecting to see a Rembrandt. The North Carolina Art Museum has many famous artists, but a Rembrandt is not among the paintings in its permanent collection. Most paintings by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn are still in his native Netherlands, but some…
Raleigh, North Carolina It’s rare that a state park subtly captures so much about the history of the state while still celebrating its natural beauty. William B. Umstead State Park, through its exhibits and layout, illustrates North Carolina’s past, present, and future through its natural and cultural history. In the past, the land where William…
Morrisville, North Carolina We had a chance to do something pretty cool. Sport Lisboa e Benfica, one of Portugal’s top football clubs, came to the United States to offer individualized training and tryouts for its club. As was explained to the parents on the day of the event, Benfica wanted to expand its reach into…
Pinehurst, North Carolina The Pinehurst Resort started in 1895, on former harvested timberland that had been left as a sandy, barren wasteland. The long leaf pines that were so plentiful throughout Moore County had been fully harvested, leaving poor-quality soil and even poorer long-term prospects for the area. James Walker Tufts bought the land for…
Pinehurst, North Carolina Located on the grounds of the famous Pinehurst resort is the World Golf Hall of Fame. The hall of fame, which was started in Pinehurst in 1974, moved to St. Augustine, Florida, in 1998, but returned to Pinehurst in 2024, just in time for the 2024 U.S. Open. Every two years, world-class…
Southern Pines, North Carolina Traveling through towns and cities, you sometimes come across intriguing street art. Southern Pines is home to an impressive mural, the Harbour Place Horse Mural. The mural was painted in 2022 by Nick Napoetano. The official web page for the mural explains how the mural was inspired by Eadweard Muybridge’s Horse…