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.
