stevesmart.com : What I Learned on my Summer Vacation

What I Learned on my Summer Vacation

Or, rather, what did I see during my summer vacation that I made sure to jot down on a piece of note paper and then research when I got home.

There's an awful lot of kudzu along Interstate 40 between Nashville and Raleigh, North Carolina. Did you know that kudzu was introduced to the United States in 1876 and is sometimes to referred to as 'the Plant that Ate the South?'

The Research Triangle Park is amazingly huge, weighing in at over 7000 acres and is the houses such tech firms as IBM, Cisco Systems, SAS, NetApp, Ericsson and many more. The RTP is a subset of a larger area of cities in central North Carolina known simply as the Triangle

The Duke Chapel, completed in 1935, is an amazing structure and is home to the largest university congregation in the country

The Duke Gardens is a great place to kids to explore for a few hours, even when it's 100 degrees

While driving around and exploring the Raleigh area, it was cool to see so many billboards and signs advertising the use of Amtrak Trains in NC. The folks living in that area are lucky to have six routes through the state

There are a ton of crape-myrtles in the Raleigh area. We saw them everywhere: around stores, in condo landscaping, along the roads, in front of homes. And they all looked great. I guess they love the summer heat

Interstates in North Carolina haven't yet adopted Clearview

I love XM Radio! Our rental car had it installed and we enjoyed crystal clear stereo reception on our entire trip. We spent equal time enjoying both Bluegrass Junction (channel 14) and Cinemagic (channel 27)

The Duke University Primate Center is really cool. Did you know that Lemurs are known as Prosimians and as such they predate monkeys and apes and humans? Go Zoboo!

Posted: Monday, August 07 2006 @ 2:27 PM
Categories: Places

10 Most Recent Entries

View Complete Archive

254 total entries

15 Recent SmartLinks