Raleigh NC

Often before we get somewhere we hear what it is like, as so many people have done the tour before and we are on a two year loop, give or take a few cities. Sometimes a place lives up to what we have been told but so often we are disappointed. I think this may be because we don't go out partying and drinking that much (that much ha, I mean ever) and sometimes for a lot of people that part of a city can make or break it. Before we arrived in Raleigh we hadn't really heard much about it at all, so had no expectations.



The first nice surprise was where the train was parked, really close to downtown. Unfortunately for us we where the wrong end of the train and the bus was unable to drive down the side like it can most weeks. Still we have been the 'right' end most weeks, I guess it was our turn. It only took 20 minutes to walk from the train yard to downtown but another 10 minutes on top of that to walk the length of the train.



The North Carolina Museum of History is situated in the Bicentennial Plaza and has free admission. It was quite interesting though I would have enjoyed it more if I had gone without Willow because she became a bit bored. In the lobby they had a wings and things display which included a replica of the Wright Flyer, a Rogallo Hang Glider and a B-8M Gyro-Copter which in its time had been designed for home assembly. I could just see the glint in Tweedy's eye as he informed me of this.



Right across from the Museum of History was the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science. This place really made the week for me, and for Willow. It was great, we went three times and still wanted to go back for more. It was another free museum, which is one of the reasons we went so much. On the first floor they have an Auditorium which showed various films through out the day and held science shows. We managed to catch a few films including Weird Nature: Marvellous Motion, Beneath the Blue and Lessons from the Journey.



On the third floor they had a room where they gave talks and you could meet animals. We went twice, the first time we met a baby alligator, a snake and much to Willows delight a turtle. The second time we met and touched various snakes. Also on the third floor was the discovery room, which allowed younger children to play and learn. Willow was maybe a little old for some of it but still loved it enough for more than one visit. We did smell tests and hunted for the queen bee in a hive among other things.



One the fourth floor they had a Living Conservatory you could walk through, full of butterfly's and a two toed sloth. Also on the fourth floor was our favourite room (no not the café though that was there too). The Naturalist Centre & Discovery Room was amazing. When you first enter you are given a little talk about what you can and cant do in there and that most museums don't have facilities like this, and it's true they don't but they all should.

They also have a great dinosaur area, with most of it on the third floor but some of it stretches from the first floor to the fourth. Some of these things where pretty big after all.



We nearly missed one of the most exciting finds for us. The remains of the first dinosaur ever found to contain a fossilized heart. It is a Thescelosaurus called Willo.



I liked Raleigh a lot, it was a nice city and I was sad to leave. Especially since everything we had heard about the next place was bad and we had seen photographic evidence to back up the claims.

Willo http://naturalsciences.org/microsites/dinoheart/index.html