North Carolina! Go on and raise up!!!

I went last weekend to visit my friend Lisa in Raleigh, N.C. We toured Duke, UNC and took a nice trip to Wilmington to see the beach (and so I could see the hometown of my most favorite, favorite basketball player of all time -- even Dwayne Wade could not overtake him in my heart I don't think -- Michael Jordan.)

OK, quick thoughts.
*Cameron Indoor Stadium (Duke's home court) is TINY!!! It reminded me of a high school gym. But I can imagine how loud and intimidating that place can get with screaming fans right on your back. It looks much bigger on TV, I suppose. They were having a high school graduation when we were there (see pic.)



*Duke is really just a small liberal arts college that has built up a prestigious name. The campus is quite small and kind of reminded me of Drury in Springfield. It does have a giant (and gorgeous) chapel in the middle of campus and medical and law schools though.

*UNC has a really nice campus and Chapel Hill is a neat place. But KU and Lawrence are still better :-)

*It's nice to be around southern hospitality. If someone runs into you in a store, they say "excuse me." Men let women eat first and open doors. It was a little weird for me...

*Sweet tea is yummy. But too much of it can just give you a headache.

*The Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill area is much larger than I thought it would be (it's quite spread out and the population is just under a million.) I'm not sure why I thought it'd be smaller -- I guess I was just expecting small college towns or something. You don't think you're in an urban area most of the time because of all the trees that line the highways. But then you see some crazy driving and you remember you're in a place with a lot of people (some of which are absolutely NUTS and don't know how to drive.)

A few more photos

I've been having some difficulty posting multiple photos. The text isn't wrapping properly. But here are a few more photos from my trip out west.


In Teton National Park.


At the Crazy Horse memorial in South Dakota (it's close to Mt. Rushmore.) Only a little bit of the actually memorial is finished on the mountain right now, but the statue in the front is what it's supposed to look like. They started the project more than 50 years ago, but haven't gotten too far yet.


At Grand Teton National Park.


Where Custer made his last stand.

Trip continued...

I made it to Chicago today, which means I have enough bandwidth to finally post some more pics.
Old Faithful was cool, but not as tall as I thought it would be.













Mom and Dad at Devil's Tower in northeast Wyoming. Close Encounters of the Third Kind was shot at Devil's Tower. It's a natural formation and I don't think the picture does justice to how big and cool it is.









Teddy Roosevelt got gypped, I think. He's in the back of the sculpture and you don't notice him as much as the others. You can see George Washington from far away. He sticks out more than the others and his collars are included. None of the others have collars. I also thought it was funny that Lincoln had no ears. Did Borglum get tired? One thing about Mt. Rushmore I didn't know: The idea came about because a local leader wanted to bring tourists to the area. His first idea was a sculpture of western heroes, like Lewis and Clark, Buffalo Bill, etc. The idea that it came about to be a "tourist draw" kind of weakened it for me. Part of the town around the mountain reminded me of Branson.

They're partying it up in Hell

6-6-06. Oh boy.