The bell tower tolls, reminding me to take a break from grading papers. I scan the lobby of The Carolina Inn, where I’ve escaped to find quiet between my morning classes. Sunlight skips across sturdy magnolia branches and spills through gracefully draped windows. Dozens of panes bend the light, spattering sofas and potted plants with a thousand little rainbows. Outside, rivers of students flow… Source ..read more

Debbie Boyle walks along the brick pathway at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Edenton, past the weathered tombstones of some 700 souls, including three former North Carolina governors. Inside the parish hall, about 20 women — all pastels and pearl necklaces, tastefully paired scarves and dresses, and stylish tortoiseshell glasses — await her arrival at folding tables. They’re hard at work doing… Source ..read more

Grace Wepner Ludtke sits amid a forest of harps, her long fingers elegantly plucking red and black strings. She’s the one with the flowing blonde hair, her locks a shade or two darker than the blond wood that’s angled against her right shoulder. Her hands gesture broadly as they flutter about the instrument, telling a story in song. The North Carolina Harp Ensemble is assembled inside a… Source ..read more

My boys and I have come to Durham’s Museum of Life and Science to find treasure. From a science lover’s perspective, this place boasts a trove of riches. Bears! Leafcutter ants! Dinosaurs! And right behind the farmyard animals is the bounty of jewels we came to see: the Magic Wings Butterfly House. Settling into its 26th year, Magic Wings is a 35-foot-tall, glass-ceilinged… Source ..read more

David Fynn hears a call coming in on channel 13 of his marine radio. A boat is hailing the Elizabeth City Bridge, asking the operator to raise the drawbridge for passage. From the floor-to-ceiling windows of his condo above the Pasquotank River, Fynn can see the bridge and the boats gliding in on the shimmering water. He grabs a goody bag containing coupons to area businesses, a visitors’ guide… Source ..read more

Appalachian artist Becca Joy Allen creates art that reflects the landscape she grew up enjoying. photograph by Tim Robison Sunlight breaks through scudding clouds and caresses the Blue Ridge Mountains, those undulating indigo waves cresting in the distance. It’s the view you see through the floor-to-ceiling windows in the intensive care unit waiting room at Mission Hospital in Asheville — and… Source ..read more

By the time a tundra swan makes it to northeastern North Carolina in the fall, it has flown some 3,000 miles, in a great diagonal slash, from the Arctic barrens down the breadth of Canada. The birds then wing across Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. A few stop along the Great Lakes marshes, but most fly nonstop all the way to Chesapeake Bay, where they gather by the hundreds… Source ..read more

Some claim that the Coastal Plain begins east of I-95, but for those of us who grew up there, the boundary is less clear. You might say that there is no physical demarcation, only an emotional one. Landscape exists as much within us as without, so the sight of flat fields curving slightly toward a line of pine forest can trigger an emotional reaction that is just as valid as what passes outside… Source ..read more

In still photographs, Triple Falls looks almost demure. Its cascades — the crown jewel of DuPont State Recreational Forest — unfurl over steep rock shoulders in soft waves. It’s Mother Nature disguised as a maiden, her shimmering tresses unpinned, tumbling gracefully down her back. But that image is just an illusion. In real life, as you climb the last steep pitch of the short trail up from… Source ..read more

Barbecue wars still rage among the factions of North Carolina’s smoked-meat devotees: tomato vs. vinegar; whole-hog vs. shoulder only. But in Charlotte, the geographical ideology falls away. Among the restaurants that make Charlotte an emerging barbecue destination, you’ll find eastern and western styles alongside smoky Texas brisket and mustardy South Carolina-style pork — sometimes all on the… Source ..read more