A North Carolina 4th of July

If your family is wondering where to go and what to do to celebrate Independence Day this year, consider some of the great events North Carolina has on offer, from the mountains to the piedmont to the coast, and everywhere in between!

For instance, Fort Bragg near Fayetteville is hosting Operation Celebrate Freedom VI on the Main Post Parade Field on base. Wynonna Judd and Dakota Rain, the Golden Knights Parachute Team and other musical guests will entertain the crowd. There will be plenty of food and drinks, and camping is allowed. The fireworks are spectacular every year at this event, almost as great as I remember on the Potomac in DC in my youth! The event is free and open to the public, the contact number is 910-396-9126.

If you’re on the coast near Southport/Oak Island in the Cape Fear area you’ll want to make plans to spend the day and evening in Southport, where there will be a car show on Bay Street in front of the Garrison House and all-day arts and crafts shows at Franklin Square Park and in the Franklin Square Gallery. Concessions, water stations and comfort stations will be along Howe Street, and on the Waterfront Stage there will be all-day stage entertainment even as the Decorated Boat Flotilla sails past the Southport Waterfront. Stay on your blanket for the wonderful fireworks at 9 pm!

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Spring LEAF Festival May 9-11

Biannual Black Mountain Tradition

It’s not too late to get your tickets for the 2008 spring Lake Eden Arts Festival, at beautiful Lake Eden in Black Mountain. Word has it that vehicle camping permits are all sold out, but there are still tent permits available as well as weekend and day tickets for those who don’t mind staying at one of the many great hotels and motels in the Black Mountain and Asheville environs.

LEAF holds its festivals every spring and fall (this year the autumn festival will be October 17-19) to showcase the LEAF in Schools and Streets arts mentoring projects for youth, its LEAF International music collaborations from Panama, Guatemala, Rwanda, Bequia and Mexico, and dozens of great, culturally significant musical groups, individuals and artists from everywhere.

This year there will be more than 40 Healing Arts Workshops during the day, featuring Yoga and Tai Chi, Folk Art, Juried Handicrafts, a national $1,000 Poetry SLAM, a children’s village with clowns, jugglers, puppeteers, games, stories and art projects. There are joyful parades, jam sessions, circus arts and zipline fun out over the lake.
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Top 25 Reasons to Visit NC - 3

Part 3: Reasons 11 - 15

Moving toward the east, there are more great reasons to consider North Carolina’s abundant offerings for family fun when planning getaways and vacations.

11. Mountains to Sea Trail

From the very top of Clingman’s Dome near the Tennessee border to the sand dunes at Jockey’s Ridge State Park on the strand of the Outer Banks, North Carolina’s 925-mile long Mountains-to-Sea Trail offers an adventurous way to explore the state’s natural treasures and human wonders. This is an adventure a visitor can embrace in small chunks or in an extended all at once while experiencing the best of NC’s towns and cities, rural agritourism initiatives and natural preserves.

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Homegrown and Handmade

NC’s Arts and Agriculture Trails

There is much more to North Carolina’s agritourism movement than just what was reported in Green Dreams, Green Schemes. There is also an alliance between the North Carolina Arts Council and the NC Cooperative Extension service called HomegrownHandmade that has mapped out “Art Roads” and “Farm Trails” in the foothills, piedmont and coastal regions that allow visitors to travel along back roads, sample fresh goat cheese and scuppernong wines, visit artists’ studios and sidewalk cafes in charming little towns. Each trail is unique, so check the links below of some HomegrownHandmade trails (their titles sort of describe the gist of what’s to see and do), and then explore at the pace you like best!

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A Family-Oriented Gold Mine of Knowledge

Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Area

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.

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