Greensboro, Old Salem, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Visited Oct. 31 - Nov. 4, 2020

By Janell

 

Note:  This is an "after the fact" post as we work our way backwards to catch you up on our previous destinations.

 

We found Springhill RV Park in Chapel Hill, NC to be very woodsy and peaceful.

So much space between campsites that our neighbors aren't even visible in this shot!

 

Soon after we arrived and got all set up, I got a surreptitious shot of Marty through the Beast's windshield. He was probably plotting our adventures for the area while enjoying his "travel day beverage". 

One of our main reasons for visiting the area was to see The International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro. It was well worth our time! It's housed in the old Woolworth store where in 1960, four college students staged a sit-in at the lunch counter and launched the start of the Civil Rights Movement. We had a semi-private tour, but unfortunately they didn't allow any photos to be taken inside the museum.

It was a windy and bitterly cold afternoon in Greensboro. Practically nothing was open due to Covid, but we found a small coffee house where a very nice woman made us beautiful mochas. We were her only customers.

Just the ticket to warm us up a bit!

Since we were in the general area we had to come to Winston-Salem just to see this.

 

In the 1930s, a local distributor of Shell Oil, called Quality Oil, built seven service stations in Winston-Salem and one in the nearby town of Kernersville. Joe Glenn and Bert Bennett acquired the distribution and built the "clamshells" as advertisements, hoping their quirkiness would draw customers. 

 

This is the only one left standing, and it's no longer a service station. It closed sometime in the 1950's. In the 70's and 80's it became a lawn mower repair business; and somewhere during that period it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Preservation North Carolina used it as a regional office for a while. Now it just draws people like us – who come to gawk and take pictures. Preservation North Carolina still holds the protective rights though, so the clamshell will be preserved in perpetuity.  

 

This mural had all of your favorite childhood friends

 

For those of you who thought the above mural was too tame: this was a window display in a second hand store

 

The folks in Winston-Salem must've needed a little extra encouragement to wear a mask

 

 

 

 

Next we visited Old Salem, NC. Old Salem is an historic town of course, but when we were there it was a virtual ghost town. We don't know if it was due to Covid or simply because it was a Monday, but not one single place was open! So we just walked around. But we did find a kitty, named Conor, who welcomed visitors.

 

Conor - he had a name tag

Mordecai Historic Park in Raleigh, NC was like a mini Greenfield Village (in Dearborn, MI - more on that another day), in that it held a small collection of historic buildings.

We had a private tour -- it didn't cost extra; it's just how they're doing things during Covid. 

The Mordecai House is the oldest house in Raleigh in its original location. The Mordecai Historic Park was once the Mordecai Plantation. We learned quite a bit about the Mordecai family and their enslaved workers from our tour guide. After the tour, in the visitors center we read quite a bit about the enslaved persons on the plantation. They even had some documented personal accounts from the enslaved.

We pedaled 20 miles on the Neuse River Greenway Trail in Raleigh, NC. It reminded us of the American River Bike Trail.

Our tour guide at the Mordecai House told us if we had an extra day in the area that we really should visit Stagville State Historic Site. She said is was very worthwhile, and she was right.

Stagville State Historic Site was a massive plantation back in the day - one of the largest plantation complexes in the south. The plantation encompassed about 30,000 acres of land, and over 900 persons were enslaved there. Because the place was so large and the Underground Railroad did not run through there, only three of the enslaved managed to escape to freedom.

These are some of the original slave quarters. Each of these 2-story structures would've housed four families.

 

 

 

 

After our tour we walked through the Horton Grove Nature Preserve which used to be part of the plantation. Each of the Horton Grove trails is named for a local African American family. We walked the Sowell Trail, which is named after Amy Sowell. Ms. Sowell, who was one of the enslaved at Stagville was born in the 1850's and served as a midwife and a community leader well into her 90's when she died in 1948.

 

The trail was a beautiful walk in the woods.

 

 

We visited the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. It was founded in 1789, and is the home of the "Tar Heels".

We also enjoyed Chapel Hill's nice old, downtown. It has such an "old town feel" but vibrantly populated with college students. There were several beautiful murals, most of which were all "Tar Heel Blue", if not actually "Tar Heel" themed.

 

 

Remember "Paint by Numbers"?

This mural is by Scott Nurkin @ themuralshop.com

To the left of the Chapel Hill mural is the back door to "He's Not Here" which is a bar. In 1972, friends Michael Troy and David Kitzmiller founded the Carolina Keg and later changed the name to He’s Not Here. There are a few legends about how the bar got its new name, but the true origin is unknown. Probably the most popular legend is that Troy's and Kitzmiller's ex-wives and lawyers were constantly calling the place, leading the staff to automatically answer the phone with "He's not here".

 

Using up the last of the firewood from our brother-in-law Rick in Boston

That's some darn good wood and a pretty awesome fire that Marty built, wouldn't you agree?