I’m a bit of a military history buff, got it from my father. Though he spent 27 years serving the country in the U.S. Navy and participated in both WW-II and Korea, he never wanted to talk much about his own experiences. He was big on Civil War history – we often spent our summer vacations touring battlefields from Gettysburg to Wilderness-Fredricksburg-Chancelorsville, Shiloh to Bull Run to Antietam, Fort Sumter to Vicksburg and lots of places in between. We’d stand on the hills where the generals plotted their strategies and ordered their troops, we’d walk the fieldstone walls that still bear the bullet and cannon scars, we traced the trenches and fortifications, imagined we could still feel the ghosts who snuck through the thick woods to flank the enemy by early morning, traced the names of the fallen in cemeteries formal and overgrown.

The other half of the summers we mostly spent touring Revolutionary sites. Valley Forge, Frontier, more Charleston and the banks of the Potomac that stayed war-torn year after year. People my generation and younger tend to think of America’s wars as blood shed on foreign soil, but our own ground has been amply watered with blood over the centuries. And of all the states of the now-50 whose stars grace our flag, North Carolina has the distinction of being “the most military-friendly state in America” (by declaration of Governor Mike Easley).

For visitors who enjoy military history as much as I do, North Carolina hosts bases and museums and battlefields and attractions that can fill weeks with knowledge and photo opportunities and memories and material covering the whole history of this nation and its military ventures that collectors, history buffs and diverse descendants of warriors will treasure.

The coastal town of Wilmington hosts the Battleship North Carolina anchored in the famous Cape Fear River as a World War 2 memorial. It hosts a museum for all ships to bear the name North Carolina, beginning with a wooden ship-of-the-line in the 1820s, a Confederate ironclad, the WW-I armored cruiser, a never-finished battleship for that same war, and the WW-II battleship visitors can tour. The ship was deployed to the Pacific theatre where it e arned 15 battle stars, and hosts collections of many artifacts, documents, photographs and works of art.

Also along Cape Fear is the colonial port town of Brunswick offers tours of archaeological excavations and a visitor’s center with AV presentations, exhibits and collections of artifacts from the Revolutionary era as well as Fort Anderson, a Civil War fortification preserved and open to the public. The town itself was razed by British troops in 1776 and never rebuilt. Fort Anderson was built atop the ruins.

Still in the Wilmington area, Civil War buffs will want to visit the Battle of Bentonville battlefield and Civil War store. Bentonville was fought on March 19, 20 and 21, 1865, the last full-scale action of the war in which the Confederates were able to mount a tactical offensive. It was the largest battle ever fought in North Carolina, and the only significant attempt to defeat the Union army of General William T. Sherman during its march through the Carolinas during the last spring of the conflict. The Park Service offers maps and information about the battles against Fort Fisher in New Hanover County between December of 1864 and February of 1865. Known as the “Gibraltar of the South,” Fort Fisher guarded Cape Fear and the city of Wilmington (the last major Confederate port). Preserved are some of the original ramparts and relics from the blockade runners that found refuge at the fort.

There are also the many active military bases in North Carolina, most of which offer visitor’s information and histories of the units, such as the 101st Airborne and Army Special Forces at Fort Bragg, the Marines from Camp Lejuene, and the ‘fly-guys’ at Pope AF Base that “put the Air into Airborne.” If you’re a military and military history buff, check out some of the military links offered below and start planning your grand tour today!

Links:

Links to NC Military History Sites
NC State Archives, Military Collection
North Carolina Military History Gallery, Raleigh

Way back in the middle ages – 1174 to be exact – a French businessman from Lyons caught the radical gist of Jesus’ teachings in the gospels and committed himself to a life of voluntary poverty and itinerant preaching. His name was Valdes. He renounced his previous business practices, threw all his money into the street, and started a soup kitchen during the famine of 1176. He traveled the countryside preaching the gospel of Jesus and eventually creating a rift with the dominant Catholic Church.

Valdes inspired other wandering preachers including Peter Waldo, who established the Poor Men of Lyons sect that preached apostolic poverty as the way to perfection. They traveled to Rome around 1177 and received the blessing of Pope Alexander III, who at the same time forbade their preaching without authorization from local clergy. The Waldensias (as they became known) of course disobeyed the papal edict, and were formally declared heretics by Pope Lucius III in 1184 and by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215.

More than 80 Waldensians were burned at the stake as heretics in Strasbourg in 1211, an act that signaled the beginning of centuries of persecution that very nearly destroyed the pious sect. The sect was granted refuge in Piedmont by the Count of Savoy, even though the House of Savoy remained staunchly Catholic. Persecutions continued through the 1400s until the only refuge left was in the Cottian Alps southwest of Turin. When news of the Protestant Reformation reached the Waldensians, the Tavola Valdese decided to seek fellowship with the Protestants. Their acceptance by German and Swiss Protestants put them firmly in the Calvinist camp rather than on a fringe of Catholicism, even though Calvin’s beliefs did not follow Peter Waldo’s original sectarian beliefs. Later Waldensians aligned with the Presbyterian Church.

While finally granted freedom of worship after the French Revolution, a group of Waldensians emigrated to North Carolina in the late-1800s to establish the town of Valdese in the western piedmont region. And there the Waldensians remain to this day, with a rich history, a great winery, and even an outdoor drama to depict their flight from persecution. They have a Waldensian Museum and a Waldensian Trail of Faith open to visitors, as is the Waldensian Heritage Winery which offers tours and wine-tastings to small groups during operating hours all year long.

There is a Waldensian Festival held every August, where a Bocce Ball tournament is held on the Waldensian packed-clay Bocce Court, and the Trail of Faith and Visitor’s Center offer historic information. The outdoor drama, “From This Day Forward” is staged every Friday and Saturday night at 8:00 p.m. during July and August every year at the outdoor amphitheater.

Check out some of the links below for further detailed information, and be sure to include a visit to Valdese on your North Carolina travel itinerary this year!

Links:

Visit Valdese: Tourism Site

Waldensian Heritage Wines

Anabaptist Network: The Waldensians

Visitors to North Carolina’s capital city of Raleigh, or to the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill triangle have a number of excellent museums to explore. Whether your family’s interests tend toward great works of art, natural science, wildlife and ecology or history, the area has institutions that offer just what you want to see or know.

The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh is free to the public and offers a unique view of the world through the lens of North Carolina’s diverse geography, geology, plants and animals. Beginning on October 27and running through March 2, 2008, the museum will be hosting an innovative dinosaur exhibit featuring a 60-food model of an apatosaurus, a full-sized T. Rex skeleton as well as a robotic version that boasts of being the most accurate three-dimensional representation of a dinosaur in motion ever created.

There will also be one of the largest re-creations of a prehistoric environment ever built, and the museum is planning to offer a wide range of lectures, hands-on workshops and other programs for adults, families and children throughout the duration of the exhibit. The museum’s Prairie Ridge Ecostation in west Raleigh offers a stroll-through lowland arboretum that showcases every single wetland tree species in the state, a working exhibit of green architecture and a display of wildlife friendly landscaping.

The North Carolina Museum of Art boasts a permanent collection of masterworks that span a 5,000 year history, from ancient Egypt to modern artists. There are examples of Egyptian funerary art, sculptures and painted vases from the Greek and Roman periods, and important european works from Botticellii, Raphael, van Dyck, Rubens and Monet. There are galleries dedicated to African, ancient American and Oceanic art as well as Jewish ceremonial artworks.

Like the Natural Sciences museum, the NC Museum of Art offers daily guided tours and is free to the public. There are usually concerts, lectures, book signings, films, workshops and special exhibits going on as well, so check out the calendar of events when planning your visit.

Another treasure of free knowledge and fascinating facts is the North Carolina Museum of History, also in Raleigh. With artifacts and exhibits covering North Carolina’s native American prehistory and every century between then and now, there are also special events, exhibits, films, lectures and child-parent activities offered on a regular basis. The museum also houses the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame. Indian dance, basket weaving, mountain music, folk artists, even organized field trips make this museum a regular part of family life for residents of the tri-cities area and a popular attraction for visitors.

The Exploris IMAX theater offers the only 3D IMAX experience in North Carolina, so families will want to have tickets in hand when they arrive in the Raleigh area. There are other wonderful places to visit in the tri-cities area that would fill a family week up to the brim. Duke Gardens occupies 55 acres of the Duke University campus and is recognized as one of the premier public gardens in the U.S.

Just down the road at Chapel Hill’s UNC campus is the North Carolina Botanical Garden. Offering tours, classes, lectures and special events, the Garden also runs a self-service plant sale on a daily basis from April through October for everyone interested in gardening. While your family is at the UNC-CH campus you will want to visit the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center, where you can meet some real scientists and view the heavens both at the planetarium shows and through the lenses of the observatory’s telescopes.

There’s always something going on for kids and families to do. Plenty of things to learn and fun adventures to be had at any of the fine museums, gardens and educational attractions in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area.

Links:

North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences

Prairie Ridge Ecostation

North Carolina Museum of Art

North Carolina Museum of History

Exploris IMAX theater

Duke Gardens

North Carolina Botanical Garden

Morehead Planetarium and Science Center

Football season is upon us, and North Carolina’s Panthers soundly defeated the Rams in St. Louis, the first time since the franchise began that their opener was an away game. Charlotte is the city the Panthers call home, and is also the home town of NASCAR. For sports lovers, you just can’t beat it!

The home schedule for the Panthers at the beautiful downtown Bank of America Stadium and events schedule for Lowe’s Motor Speedway are below, and there are several overlapping weekends that sports lovers could take advantage of for booking a multi-purpose get-away in the Charlotte environs.

Whether one chooses to stay at one of the fine downtown hotels so as to take advantage of Charlotte’s lively music scene. excellent restaurants and brew-houses, or to rent a cabin or condo at nearby Lake Norman so as to get in a little water sport and golfing action too, there is plenty to fill any vacationer’s schedule.

Lake Norman is just 18 miles from Charlotte via interstate highway. It’s the largest man-made lake in the state with more than 520 miles of shoreline and extending over four counties. There are power and sailboat rentals, some prizewinning fish, fine sand beaches and a State Park which offers camping, hiking and biking trails. There are several championship golf courses around the lake, and luxury accommodations along with lakefront cabins available for rental. Several world class restaurants front the lake, and there are numerous regional attractions nearby. Not the least of which is Carowinds theme park, so bring the kids!

Charlotte Douglas airport is conveniently located, and a busy hub with flights in and out from just about everywhere. Shuttles to most outlying and downtown hotels serve arriving passengers, or you can rent a car right at the airport and take your own time and sightseeing tours. Getting your tickets ahead of time is always advised for Panthers home games, though speedway events generally have room for drop-ins and also offers tours of the facilities on off days.

The North Carolina Auto Racing Hall of Fame Museum is just a short drive from downtown Charlotte in Mooresville, where even the cop cars are adorned with NASCAR checkered flags and everybody who’s anybody sports a favorite driver’s car number on their bumper.

Panthers Football: Home Schedule
Sept. 16, v. Houston
September 30, v. Tampa Bay
October 28, v. Indianapolis
November 11, v. Atlanta
November 25, v. New Orleans
December 2, v. San Francisco
December 16, v. Seattle
December 22, v. Dallas

Lowe’s Motor Speedway Events:
September 13-16, Food Lion AutoFair
October 10, Jani-King Southern Showdown
October 11, Bojangles’ Pole Night
October 12, Dollar General 300
October 13, Bank of America 500
October 26-28, Goodguys Southeastern Nationals
November 1-3, World of Outlaws World Finals
November 23, Souvenir and Race Ticket Blow-Out

Links:

Lowe’s Motor Speedway Home

Speedway Visitor’s Guide

Carolina Panthers Home

NC Vacation: Lake Norman Vacation Rentals

NC Auto Racing Hall of Fame