Southeast Tour Stop 3 ~ North Carolina

By Parker

North Carolina was our next destination so we left SC after lunch on Tuesday, February 18 and drove straight to the Davenport’s. Our dad has worked with Mr. Van for over 15 years at Family Heritage. Their house was like a castle! Even the front door! Jack crushed Taite in ping pong while we were outside hanging out in their sweet backyard. My parents and their parents watched a ball game or something on their big TV that was above their outdoor fireplace. Ava, Calla, and I hung out and we played basketball with the boys. Then our families ate dinner together at a fancy restaurant called J. Alexander. My mom wouldn’t let me wear my sweatpants with holes in them. 

Calla and I enjoyed spending time with Ava. She was really nice and fun to talk to. She is really talented in gymnastics and works really hard at it. She said she practices 20 hours per week! That takes a lot of dedication. She has a lot of medals to show for it. 

Then went to a hotel and spent the night in Raleigh.  In the morning we went swimming because we really wanted to. It was really cold. It might have been the coldest pool I’ve ever swam in. I’m glad Dad found a hotel with a pool, but it felt like we were doing the Polar Plunge...with our swimsuits and goggles...in North Carolina. We stayed in the pool for at least two minutes. 

UNC and Duke are located really close to Raleigh. We have often visited college campuses along our travels so we did here, too. I thought Duke was most interesting because it looked like a palace. There were a bunch of tents in K-ville. I learned that students would live in their tents up to three months so they could get tickets to watch the UNC-Duke basketball game. Weird. 

After a couple haircuts and some ice cream, we drove to Castalia, North Carolina, to visit Auntie PD and Uncle Bayou. PD is my Grammy’s youngest sister.  She made some delicious lasagna for dinner and had Atlantic beach pie for dessert. It was really good (and similar to key lime pie). We spent time talking and playing games. It was kind of like hanging out with Grammy - really fun. 

Then went to a hotel somewhere in the middle of nowhere and stayed the night.  It was NOT fun because it was really cold, only had two twin size beds (at least that’s what it felt like), and there wasn’t a pool. In the morning we went to Waffle House for breakfast, which fulfilled one of Lincoln’s  goals for this trip.    

But it wasn’t really that great.