Raleigh

Travel America, Jan, 2001 by Randy Mink, Karen Mink

Sir Walter would have been proud!

Brimming with new attractions, North Carolina's capital offers a lot to see and do

Maybe it's the canopy of hardwoods and pine trees that shelter city neighborhoods and surrounding countryside. Or it could be the hearty doses of Southern hospitality served up in countless outstanding restaurants. Perhaps what makes Raleigh such a memorable place to visit is its surprising number of cultural attractions, many of them free and family-friendly.

When it comes to tourist playgrounds in North Carolina, the Atlantic coast and western mountains most often come to mind, not the rolling hills of the state's most populated region, the Heartland. But more and more travelers are taking the roads to Raleigh, one of 12 municipalities in Wake County (pop. 600,000) and the largest city (300,000) in a metropolitan area known as the Triangle, consistently rated one of the best places to live in America. (The fast-growing cities of Durham and Chapel Hill make up the other points of the Triangle.)

Founded in 1792 as North Carolina's capital city, Raleigh is named for Sir Walter Raleigh, who in the 1580s tried to establish the first English colony on the shores of the New World. Its nickname is "City of Oaks."

For a good taste of North Carolina and a heapin' helpin' of nostalgia, have breakfast or lunch at Big Ed's, a rambling country-style restaurant in City Market, a revitalized section of downtown with specialty shops on lamp-lit brick streets. "Big Ed" Watkins, wearing a red gingham shirt and blue jean overalls, circulates among the tables, each with a bottle of molasses on it. Ed may show you how to mix butter and molasses to eat on huge homemade biscuits. Of the plows in front of the restaurant, Ed says, "I've used every one of them on my Daddy's tobacco and cotton farms." Farm implements hang from the ceiling.

A few years ago, Big Ed, 68, turned over the business to his son, Richard, who took it on the condition that Big Ed would still be a visible presence. Ed is a big man who claims he never got arthritis because he eats the gristle off chicken bones. Fun-loving and a bit mischievous, he might even take a knife and fork and sample from your plate.

Big Ed's "Rebel Breakfast" consists of eggs, grits, biscuits, red-eye gravy, country ham, tenderloins, hash browns with onions, and pancakes the size of your plate. Ed says his ham and sausage are made by a company that uses his daddy's recipe, but it is under $100,000 bond not to duplicate the recipe for anyone else. Lunch is a choice of country ham, barbecue pork, chicken `n' dumplings, or pork tenderloin with an assortment of vegetables that could include candied yams, collards, butter beans, or squash and onions.

Because the state produces 40 percent of the nation's sweet potatoes, the orange-fleshed vegetable is a popular item at many Raleigh restaurants throughout the year, not just around the holidays. You find the high-fiber food in everything from bisque and biscuits to salads and creme brulee. The Rathskeller's ravioli Alfredo is stuffed with sweet potato, walnuts, and raisins, then topped with Alfredo sauce, Romano cheese, and toasted pine nuts. Marinated duck breast with apple date chutney at Cappers would not be complete without sweet potato puree.

Serious food fans also turn out at the State Farmers Market, where Bug Ed buys his vegetables fresh from the fields. One of the country's best markets, the 75-acre indoor/outdoor complex offers not only produce, but meats, flowers, jams and jellies, honeys, and crafts. Eat at one of the two restaurants or just nibble on samples of peaches, cantaloupes, and boiled peanuts.

If it's food for thought you hunger for, check out Raleigh's cutting-edge museums. Especially popular with families is the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, which unveiled its new $70.5 million expansion last spring. The seven-story facility, the Southeast's largest natural history museum, focuses more on habitats (dioramas) than specimens. Living dioramas, ranging from the mountains to the sea, showcase more than 270 species of live animals, from tiny ants to a 30-pound sloth--nearly 3,500 animals in all. An arthropod zoo acquaints visitors with venomous spiders and gigantic cockroaches.

The free-admission museum displays four whale skeletons and recently acquired the world's only acrocanthosaurus, a 110-million-year-old, meat-eating dinosaur that lived 45 million years before the T. Rex. Known as the "Terror of the South," the 2.6-ton, 40-foot-long beast was the largest North American predator of its time and is the only mountable specimen of its kind in the world. An exhibit under the museum's glass dome recreates a prehistoric dinosaur battle, with the acrocanthosaurus in hot pursuit of a lumbering sauropod, complete with sound and special effects. Opening February 17 and running through May 6 is "Extreme Deep: Mission to the Abyss," a hands-on adventure to the bottom of the ocean.

Raleigh also takes pride in the North Carolina Museum of Art, where paintings and sculptures span more than 5,000 years, from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome to the present. Artists represented range from Renaissance masters Botticelli and Raphael to such 20th century Americans as Andrew Wyeth and Georgia O'Keeffe. Admission is free. The landmark Museum Park provides a fine setting for outdoor movies, concerts, and other performances.