The R.J. Reynolds company is based in Winston-Salem North Carolina. It was founded by Richard Joshua Reynolds who, in 1913, had this crazy idea that he should sell packaged cigarettes. Up to this point in time, most people would roll their own cigarettes. Nobody thought there would be a market for pre-packaged cigarettes. R.J. created Camel cigarettes (they used Turkish tobacco) and within a year the company had sold 425 million packs of Camels. Yup – he became one rich dude.
I'm heading north, up to Gainesville Florida to the Kanapaha Botanical Gardens. One of the premier sights to see in Old Florida. I am staying at Kate's Fish Camp – it looks and feels like something out of the sixties. Very old school. I jump in the truck, all ready to head to the Gardens. I put the address into Google Maps, only to have Ms. Google tell me -'your destination is closed today'. What? It's Thursday – nobody closes on a Thursday. But, yes, Thursdays are the one day of the week that the Gardens are closed. Oh well, another sight-seeing opportunity missed. I could have stayed one more day and gone to the Gardens but it is time to leave Florida. Just too many old folks here (Please disregard the fact that I am one of those old folks- or so my granddaughter says). Onward and northward.
I spent a night in Townsend, GA and a night Florence SC. Yes, I am flying northward. I finally got to the Rolling View State Recreational Area – a park that is on the north side of Raleigh, NC. I loved this place – it was fairly close to Raleigh and I was back in the woods with lots of hiking trails. After a month in RV parks, this was a treat. North Carolina is developing a trail that they call Mountain to Sea Trail. It will go all the way across NC from the Appalachian Mountains to the Outer Banks. I guess everybody is getting into the cross country mega-mile type of trail. They have 700 miles of it done so far and part of it goes right through the park that I am at.
I am extremely proud of the fact that I backed into this site and got it on the first try.
AND, it was on the more difficult off-side. Yay Me!!!!
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| My faucet at my site had an issue and they had to replace the whole thing. I think I had every single park maintenance guy working on it. |
I'm going to get a little culture in Raleigh. I have not been to a Natural History Museum in decades. The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences has a lot of exhibits pertaining to NC flora and fauna. The cool thing is that they had all of these whale skeletons hanging from the ceiling. You could really get a feeling for how big and how diverse some of these species are. There were also dinosaur skeletons. They had an Acro skeleton which is extremely rare, it is the most complete Acro skeleton every found and it is the only “real” skeleton displayed in the whole world. Think of it as sort of a variation on good ol' T-Rex, just as vicious, but not as pretty.
I loved the North Carolina Museum of Art. They had taken Covid very seriously. You had to follow the footprints thru the museum and I really liked that. I like having direction. I enjoyed the art, it was more of a contemporary ilk and it just made me feel very happy.
You had to look at this painting through a piece of glass that would turn it right side up.
The cool thing though was the material that was used to create this art.
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| Spools!!! |
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| This mirrored box was in a room all by itself. There were holes where you could look inside. |
Colored lights. The colors would change all sort of different ways. You can see me taking a picture through the hole.
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| Miko practicing camouflage |
