After a terrible night's sleep at the Cracker Barrel the day before, it was so nice to stay in quiet neighborhood in Durham! Sleep is never overrated!
Meeting Mike and His Family
After waving goodbye to our friend Hannah's street once Sheila had gone for a brief walk and pee, we headed to Michael's friend's house--his name is also Michael, so to avoid confusion we will call him Michael T. Actually, Michael hasn't met him before, but has known him for years as he was one of the early travel bloggers when blogging was still nascent (and well before today's era of "content creators" and "influencers").
We visited his house where we also met his wife and daughter, as well as their dog, cat, and rabbit! Michael T. has a lot of projects that he dabbles in (lots of techy stuff--from 3D printing to coding and cloud services), providing for ample conversation and lots of show & tell. So we were there for a few hours to chat over coffee, before heading out with hopes to catch up again in the future somewhere in the world.
Apparently Durham is really well-known for Indian cuisine as there are a lot of Indian immigrants who have settled here, but Lisette was starting to feel like she was coming down with a cold, so we had Vietnamese pho noodles (soup is always the perfect remedy) for lunch. Lisette had planned to go to a Afrobeats dance workshop after finding out that there was a guest teacher in town, but wasn't feeling up to it in the end so we took our time enjoying our yummy lunch. Luckily, Lisette hadn't signed up in advance, otherwise it'd be a whole lot of discomfort getting through a 2-hour workshop!
Catching Up With Caz & Craig
In the afternoon, we headed to the town of Cary, part of the Durham/Raleigh area, visiting Caz and Craig, who Michael has also known for years as part of the same travel blogger community. They're both Australian, and traveled in an RV around Australia and the US before settling down in Cary, in a beautiful and cozy home, with their daughters. They started the website This is Raleigh a few years ago to highlight the city, and it's now one of the premier sites on life in Raleigh.
After hanging out at their home for a bit (sorry Sheila, had to stay in the RV as they have a couple of cats and the backyard leads to the woods), we piled into their car (Sheila included) to get dinner in downtown Cary, at a local barbecue spot called Lawrence Barbecue that had recently opened. We've had quite a bit of barbecue from the prime cities around the US--including Texas (smokier) and Kansas (sweeter) --and the difference with barbecue from the Carolinas is that it's more vinegar-based, so we had to try it! After now trying the different styles of barbecue, we have to admit that Texan-style barbecue is our favorite. However, what was great about Lawrence Barbecue was that they offered BBQ jackfruit, so Lisette didn't miss out on trying barbecue in North Carolina. When we arrived at the restaurant it was jam-packed, but by the time we left we were pretty much the last ones there, as it turned out they closed earlier than we expected, at 9pm.
After a filling dinner, we walked briefly around Cary, and it is beautiful downtown. One of the things we loved was that there were so many safe, immaculate, and well-lit public spaces. Downtown Cary Park in particular was gorgeous, with a centerpiece night-lit fountain, pretty gardens, and community games, where we could see lots of kids and couples still out and about. It's wonderful to visit places that have a really positive community feel to them, where it feels safe for kids to play and grow up in.
We drove back to Caz and Craig's place, popping Sheila back inside the RV, but not before she saw Caz and Craig's cat judging Sheila from their front door! It was rather hilarious, seeing the standoff between age-old enemies, ahead of hopping back into the RV for the night.