Adventures in Raleigh | N.C. State Capitol + Veterans Freedom Park

As I mentioned before, things are going to be pretty quiet around this little blog space for the first half of the summer since a lot of my free time is temporarily occupied by commuting to/from my new job and planning to move our lives 100 miles west (exactly five weeks from now, we'll be permanent residents of Winston-Salem, ah!). At the very least, however, I plan on popping in once a week to share some snippets of our last month in the Raleigh area.

Below are photos of two of our recent adventures: an evening in downtown Raleigh and an afternoon at Cary's brand new Veterans Freedom Park.








Our favorite Raleigh restaurant (Shish Kabob) is just four blocks away from the State Capitol, so whenever we venture downtown to stuff our faces with lamb gyro next to the gorgeous outdoor fountain in City Plaza, we typically end up walking down the road and wandering around the property. I'm pretty sure I have an identical photo of Zach at the "Marines" pillar taken exactly four years ago when we met up in Raleigh one Saturday for a date :)

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The 90-foot spire/monument has been under construction for nearly the past year and was just dedicated a couple of weeks ago over Memorial Day weekend. (It doesn't appear to be on any map, yet, but locals: it's directly across from Cary Academy at the corner of Harrison & Cary Parkway.) It's a beautiful little space, and I'm really glad we got the chance to see the finished monument before we move.

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We do a lot of non-military/patriotic things together, too, but with Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day, the 70th anniversary of D-Day, and Flag Day within less than a month of one another, we're kind of all red, white, and blue to the max over here at the moment. Maybe we'll dial it down a notch after the Fourth of July... but I don't make any promises ;)