Sunday 27 May

 We left Rockville about 745am and had no major traffic issues.

We got to the VA/NC border and I gave my cousin Al Deitch (on my mother's side) a text and he told us to come over as soon as we got to the Raleigh area. Al and his wife Alice live in Wake County just outside the incorporated Raleigh area. One of their neighbors has chickens outside.

The first image was taken by Juliana, Al and Alice's daughter. From left to right, Evan (name of bear is unknown), Jackie, Charlotte (Evan and Charlotte are grandkids of Al and Alice) and Jason (Al and Alice's son), myself, Ann and Al.



The second image was taken by Al's daughter in law, Jackie.  From left to right, Juliana and Jason (Al and Alice's children), myself, Ann and Al.

Sunday 27 May - Hotel

 We stayed in a fairly inexpensive hotel (about $70/night). It was a Comfort Inn. 

There were some interesting things about the place. 

First, they had a Coke machine that dispensed cans for only $1. 

Second they had a statue of a wolf greeting guests for some reason.

They also had pre peeled hard boiled eggs as part of their included breakfast.

Monday 28 May

In the A.M. we went to the Marbles Kids Museum in Raleigh. It has a lost of toys to play with (first image from a yelp comment about the place). Most of our time was, however, spent in their huge Imax theater watching a movie about pandas.

The imax is about 60 feet high and 40 feet wide.

After the imax we took a driving tour of the North Carolina University campus.

After that we visited with my cousin Ellen (on my father's side) and her husband Sojii (second image). We went to their house and then to a brewery. We got a brewery employee to take the picture.

Monday Night May 28 Kosher Surprise

A bit after we returned to the hotel, Ann asked if I could bring her some ice cream.   Sure enough, they had lots of ice cream. Here is the surprise: the generic Walmart brand of ice cream (which cost about $1.70 for the 48 ounce size), was kosher. Not only that, but the Rocky Road which contains marsh mellow was kosher and that is very rare because the kosher certification requires the gelatin be made from fish bones. 

Yes I bought some and it was pretty goood.

Tuesday May 29 AM to mid PM

We spent much of the day with Al and Alice. 

Part of the day we went downtown to, among other things, the NC Natural History Museum.

Among other things the museum had some recently discovered bones of a saber tooth tiger (illustration from t he museum website). Based on the bones, the museum thinks the body shape of the sabertooth tiger in America (at least at the beginning of the Pleistocene era about 2 million years ago) may  have been different from that of the same animal in the Old World (where most of the recovered bones are from the end of the Pleistocene era (about 10 thousand years ago). Those Old World sabertooth tigers had bigger teeth and looked more tiger-like.

Another stop in our tour was at the farmer's market. This place actually had several tourist buses parked in the adjacent lot and the market took up at least 3 or 4 acres. A tomato farmer took the second image.

Back at the hotel we had another big helping of ice cream for dinner.

Wednesday, May 30 AM

On Wednesday morning we drove to Durham and toured around Duke University. One of the place we stopped and walked around was at the Sara Duke Garden. 

 
The first image, taken by a groundskeeper is of Ann and me at the gothic arch gazebo in the Sarah Duke Garden. 


I think this gazebo was constructed in the past 10 years but I'm not sure (and couldn't figure it out from the internet).

The gazebo is supposed to be inspired by the Duke Cathedral (second image)

Wednesday, May 30 PM

 In the afternoon of the 30th we drove back to Rockville.

On the way back to Rockville, we stopped in Petersburg, VA to look at an apartment complex that we were considering as an investment (we would have owned less than 1% as it was like a limited partnership).  The complex is a renovated industrial site. The first image is the outside and the second is the inside of an apartment.

Although the complex has a good rental history and some amenities are being located in the neighborhood, ultimately we decided not to invest in it. This was partly because the investment window hadn't opened yet and we needed to obligate funds to meet the rules for 1031 exchanges. 

Then we ran into a major traffic tie up in Richmond due to an accident, and then the usual problems at the American Legion bridge carrying I-495 over the Potomac. We got back to our house about 800pm or so. 

Finally, Hard rock bear had accompanied us on this trip and his comments are on the Stuffed Animal blog.