It was another beautiful morning in Raleigh, and time for us to say very fond farewells to Caz and Craig, who were so much fun to catch up with over the last couple of days. We're so grateful for the opportunity to have hung out, and it was fantastic to get to appreciate it more through the lens of our friends who have fully embraced what Raleigh has to offer.
The Second Biggest and the Biggest!
Before we left Raleigh, we stopped briefly outside the North Carolina Museum of Sciences, which was closed (it was a Monday). Fortunately, our reason for stopping was outside, to check out the world's second-largest globe (although it could be the third largest now after The Sphere in Las Vegas), which, at its widest point, measures 70 feet (21 meters) across. Inside the globe is a presentation space inside for films, science experiments, and educational programs, while the exterior shows high-res satellite photos of the Earth. A bit of trivia: the other globe that's larger than the one in Raleigh is the Unisphere in New York City.
We weren't finished with our "world's biggest" attractions yet: our next step was the World's Largest Frying Pan in the town of Rose Hill, in North Carolina. Apparently there are larger frying pans, but this one is the largest operational one, weighing 2 tons, with a 15 foot diameter, a 6 foot long handle, and capable of holding 200 gallons of cooking oil. The frying pan was built in 1963 as a tribute to the region's growing poultry industry.
The frying pan was covered and sitting flat (so we didn't get the best photos of it), but to appreciate its full size and abilities, it's used once a year at the annual North Carolina Poultry Jubilee, when the community comes together to fry chicken--the pan can cook 365 chickens simultaneously! Based on the photos and signs around the frying pan, the Jubilee seems to be the Rose Hill's most awaited event of the year, with a pageant and other activities to celebrate the big day!
Our last stop in North Carolina was Shipwreck Park, where the remains of the 138-foot long ship, the Mary E. Morris, reside. The North Carolina coast was known as the "graveyard of the Atlantic", as more than 5,000 ships have been lost in the region.
The Mary E. Morris was built in 1884 and sunk in 1893 while transporting phosphorus during a hurricane, as the crew abandoned ship during the intense weather conditions. The ship lingered in its watery grave for more than a century, before its remains were surfaced in 1999. The town of Oak Island now displays the remains of the ship, which look like very old and rotting slabs of wood, which sit in a fenced off area, still exposed to the elements but serving as a reminder of all the ships that have sank over the years.
Visiting All Lower 48 US States: Check!
We did a fair amount of driving today from Raleigh, eventually reaching one of the stops we'd been most looking forward for a while: crossing the border into the last state in the continental US! So we've achieved our goal of visiting all 48 states on this trip, and now Alaska is the only state that we've not been to. We were thrilled to achieve this major milestone, and of course had to take a photo standing in from of the South Carolina Welcome Center to commemorate the occasion.
We had a brief stop at North Myrtle Beach, taking Sheila with us so that we could have a quick run along the beach at the end of the day. It's always joyous to see Sheila running along the sand--she loves it and is in her element!
Tonight, we stayed at... surprise, surprise, a Cracker Barrel restaurant! We'll have to do a tally at the end of this RV trip and find out how many we stayed in total, and calculate the number of nights stayed in the other top places, including casinos, BLM land, rest stops and truck stops/gas stations.
