Adventure in NC: The Duke Homestead

Once I got settled into visiting with my brother (we're pictured here together in case the family resemblence isn't obvious) we planned a couple of trips to experience the local history of North Carolina. I selected visiting the Duke Homestead and Tobacco Museum because I thought tobacco was a unique quality of North Carolina. Plus the location was close to Pinehurst.

We made our journey to the homestead in the mid-afternoon, just in time to catch the last guided tour of the day. We drove through the city of Chapel Hill and saw the university, which made me think of Noricum.

The museum center housed old tobacco machinery and contained frightening mannequins. The homestead consisted of an old barn where the tobacco was dried and cured, a building where it was processed, and then the Duke family home. I learned that the Duke family left a large endowment which now funds Duke University, among other things.

We ended the day by having dinner at the nearest Fuddrucker's. According to my beliefs a perfect burger should be cooked to medium-rare or less. Any doneness above medium-rare is getting into trouble. I was informed while ordering my burger that "medium" was the lowest they could prepare as dictated by North Carolina state law. I was hoping that the cook would go easy on my patty and it was not as dry as I feared.

Some Pictures

The homestead had a resident cat named Biscuit who slinked around and was very friendly. I took a picture of the oil lamp because of the doily underneath it. The creepy lady mannequin at the cigarette machine looks like a nasty lunch lady.