Cross-Country Exploration

This trip was long premeditated and planned, but no matter how mapped out a trip is, there should always be room for exploration. It started in one of the most familiar places, at my parents' house in North Carolina, where I did some exploration with a little help from Atlas Obscura. There are currently only four places listed in the city of Raleigh, and I had already been to one in high school. So I determined that if we did nothing else the whole week, I wanted to round out the list and make it onto the Atlas Obscura leader board for Raleigh, NC. We arrived in North Carolina just as Hurricane Florence was hitting national news. Raleigh did not get hit anywhere near as hard, but everything shut down by Thursday. I still dragged my parents and husband to all three places: a pump house disguised as a town house, a defunct water treatment plant that was in use for over a hundred years, and a camera obscura in the woods by the art museum.

Our explorations did not end with being housebound by the hurricane. We explored my parents' attic and closets to thin out the stuff they've graciously stored for me. I tossed out several projects from my teenage self which were of no interest to anyone but her. For example, my sister assured me that not even the Bunny Museum would want my creepy ear-less clay rendition of Peter Rabbit, so in the trash he went.  On the other hand, I was finally able to transport my tin canister of rubber cement across the nation for use in current projects!

The rest of the trip went as follows:

 We met up with family on both sides and friends around each of the pins. We saw the most diverse variations of ground, sky, and trees, interspersed with miles of sorghum stalks.

We imagined what it would be like to live in all the places we passed through, but came to the conclusion that LA is still the best place for us to be right now. Looking forward to staying home now for a good while.