Raleigh Area
After Chapel Hill we moved on to Raleigh but before we hit town we looked at the town of Hillsborugh. It's a nice town but there was not even one house for sale.
In Raleigh we are staying at the State fairgrounds which is filled with large RVs and trailers but it is surprisingly quiet. Most of the campers are not here. We plugged in to shore power which allows us to run the microwave to make popcorn, eggs and bacon.
On the way into town we stop at the Stagville Plantation. In 1850 this was one of the largest plantations in the South, 30,000 acres. The profitability of slavery was largely dependent on the ability of slave owners to extract as much labor as possible from their slaves while minimizing costs. The owner of this plantation was rather ruthless in his pursuit of profits.
The area now is owned by the state and we joined a tour where our guide tried not to show us so much about the owners but about the enslaved. You have to use a lot of imagination to try and get an idea of what life was like.
On Saturday we had lunch with Corby's cousin and his wife at their house. It was very nice.
Afterwards we went downtown and to what is probably the first neighborhoods in Raleigh, Oakwood. It's very close to downtown and the homes are nice and people friendly but the housing has become untouchable for us. A house that sold for $250,000 in 2010 is now $750,000. Our house has appreciated maybe a third in 20 years not 3 times.
Had a pasta dinner in a restaurant downtown that was very good and reasonably priced ($16). If you had a job downtown and could have a house in Oakwood it wouldn't be a bad place at all.
Sunday we went to the North Carolina Museum of Art. It was raining so it was a good day to be inside. The outside of this building is re-markedly plain but make sense one you get on the inside. This is not a great museum and their collection are a mix. This is probably one of a kind museum in that it was funded by the state. "The Peoples Collection" was done well. The building is very open and like most museums way more to see and read about than you can do in an afternoon.
After the museum we went to the warehouse district which is close to downtown and had barbecue (it was just OK).
