The North Carolina Capitol building in Raleigh has an impressive memorial to those who lost their lives in World War II.
NC WWII Memorial
It pales into insignificance beside its Civil War memorial to their Confederate dead.
NC Civil War Memorial
They even have a statue to the women of the Confederacy on the Capitol grounds.
NC Civil War Statue
Long day in the Archives and State Library and needed some air just to clear my mind. Took a walk around the hotel with the camera, and this male northern cardinal flew up into a pine and turned to look back at me.
Raleigh cardinal
Worked all day in the North Carolina State Library and Archives but HAD to get out with the camera in the evening just to clear the cobwebs. Not a whole lot to shoot but there were a few flowers in front of the motel where I was staying…
The rose
Since the North Carolina Archives are closed on Mondays, we spent the 18th working at the Wilson Library on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Wonderful library with fabulous resources… and photogrenic as well when the weather is half-decent!
Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
Sunday we moved from the conference hotel to a motel in north Raleigh. I had hoped to have a day off to do some shooting, but the weather was nasty and cold, and it turned out that the UNC library in Chapel Hill was open for research for a few hours. Off we went, and the photo of the day today shows what I was really focusing on — old documents and records in original and abstracted form. Not even a good photo — taken with my little Canon 850IS point and shoot, but this is what my days were filled with for most of the research trip!
Research
So it was the last night of the conference, I forgot to bring the camera with me out to dinner, I was tired, and I hadn’t taken a single shot I could even think of using for this photo-a-day project. There had to be something in a hotel room to shoot, you’d think… and there was. There always is. Every hotel room I’ve ever stayed in has certain standard supplies…
Hotel supplies
The City of Raleigh, North Carolina, is a small attractive city, especially at night, with the state capitol building looming at the end of Wilmington Street.
Wilmington Street, Raleigh
The capitol building itself is quite nice, at least to the extent that it wasn’t covered in scaffolding:
North Carolina Capitol
Walking back down to the hotel, it seemed like every street had buildings nicely lit and well kept.
Raleigh street at night
There was a high school prom underway at the conference hotel, and the limos the kids used were parked in front of the Memorial Auditorium, used for public arts performances.
Raleigh Memorial Auditorium
The one kind of photo I am worst at, and dislike taking the most, is a photo of people. I’m just not comfortable trying to get a good shot of folks who care what they look like, which is oh about 99.999% of the human race. So I was a little leery when a participant in the National Genealogical Society asked me to take a shot of her and her cousins, some of whom she had met for the first time at the conference. But I agreed, and it came out okay, I guess.
The cousins
Everywhere you look in Raleigh, North Carolina, there are gardens and flowers and flower boxes and containers. The city fathers obviously understand the value of a downtown that looks good.
Raleigh street
Leafy shadow
The last leg of driving en route to a genealogy conference in Raleigh, North Carolina. This home, recently completed, was in an area of a gated complex described as that complex’s “cheap seats”… Sigh… Out of my income bracket, for sure…
The cheap seats