October 2022
Chapel Hill is a smallish city of about 62,000 in North Carolina dominated by the prestigious University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It is similar to the town where we currently live in both population and the university presence, but it feels a little more rural. The climate is a bit more temperate than ours, and it gets about three times as much rain. Many of the streets look like this:
Since visiting Chapel Hill, I have learned that it is or was the home of many well-known folks, including former presidential candidate John Edwards, the musician Ben Folds, the author John Grisham, the journalist Charles Kuralt, novelist Betty Smith (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn), the musician James Taylor, and author Thomas Wolfe (You Can't Go Home Again). Pretty impressive.
We had someone who wanted to go on a walk and hopefully chase that ball she was so lovingly guarding.
She got her wish. Not far from where our son was living when I visited are peaceful woods with wandering trails. The autumn colors were just beginning to emerge.
I was helping my kindergarten granddaughter with her "Flat Stanley" project where the child draws a picture of herself, then sends it "on a vacation" to visit a relative. The relative takes the child's self-portrait around and photographs it in a variety of places. It was fun to show "my granddaughter" the sights.
Bird of Prey by Chris Belk was created in memory of his father, who left behind a toolbox of wrenches which Belk welded together to create this one-of-a-kind eagle.
Another lovely site for a walk is the North Carolina Botanical Garden, which is operated by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (but no dogs allowed). Comprising over 1,000 acres, it is one of the largest native plant botanical gardens in the Southeast United States and is loaded with winding nature trails and interesting plants and artworks. Admission is free.
It is known for its carnivorous plant garden that includes, among other plants, the Venus flytrap and the Sarracenia pitcher plant.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is adjacent to the botanical garden. I love visiting university campuses, and this one was especially intriguing to me as I would like to have gone here for graduate school. It was chartered in 1789 and is one of the oldest public universities in the United States. It has about 32,000 students and a $5.16 billion endowment fund.
UNC Chapel Hill is definitely a tree-loving school, but I was surprised to see a coastal redwood on campus. I associate those with Northern California.
I loved all the art around campus. Here's a blue-footed booby, a bird we saw in the Galapagos Islands.
There was a marine iguana as well, another Galapagos native.
This sculpture honors the enslaved people who helped build UNC at Chapel Hill.
The iconic 172-foot-tall bell tower was completed in 1931.
The Wilson Library was completed in 1929 and today houses the Special Collections.
It's a beautiful campus. I wonder what grad school here would have been like in the early 1980s.
(Bob) I still need to visit Chapel Hill. This was a nice introduction to it.
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