Saturday we woke up and drove to Chapel Hill for breakfast. Chapel Hill has a very neat downtown with the main drag Franklin Street having lots of shops, stores, etc.
The University of North Carolina borders downtown Chapel Hill so there is lots of action. We ate here at the Carolina Coffee House and Bar for a yummy breakfast!
We saw a Qdoba in downtown Chapel Hill and thought of Julie and James!
We then drove through Carborro, a neighboring village that is a real unique eclectic town. The locals call it a hippie town. It wasn't quite as hippie and Berkeley or San Francisco, but there were lots of peace signs and Obama banners! Jim especially loved this restored train station and train cars that are now a restaurant.
We then drove around downtown Raleigh (the State Capitol and largest city of the metro area) and saw the campus of North Carolina State University. It is amazing that three big universities (Duke, UNC, and NC State) can be in a metropolitan area that size. There is a huge research area called Research Triangle Park (RTP) between the three cities that was started by the three Universities. It started out as medical resreach but now has lots of high tech companies, etc. The locals went so far as to call it the Silicon Valley of the east coast. Colleen read a stat that the Triangle metro area has more medical professionals per capita than any other metro area.After touring NC State and Raleigh, we headed to the town of Wake Forest. Wake Forest University used to have a campus there, but they moved about 80 miles away back in the 50s. There was a new development there being built so we went in to the sales office just to check prices of homes there. It was amazing that a new 4 bed/2.5 bath, 3 story home could be had for the same price we could buy a tiny fixer upper in San Diego. Here is one of the houses:
That night for dinner we went back to Chapel Hill to have a beer and some food. When we got to Franklin Street we found parking very tough, the streets crowded, and the restaurants even more crowded. All the places had 1.5 hour waits. We knew those crowds couldn't be normal even for a Saturday night. What we didn't realize was that UNC had a huge basketball game on campus starting shortly. We finally ended up eating dinner at the Carolina Coffee House again because it had the shortest wait! 
As soon as the game started on TV, the place cleared out because everybody walked over to arena to see the game. We left the restaurant at halftime and the streets were dead because everybody was at the game or at home watching it. The bartenders told us that as soon as the game ended it would get crowded again from everybody leaving the game. They really take basketball seriously at UNC and in Chapel Hill!The next day we met with a realtor to get a feel for different houses and neighborhoods. Even though the new houses in Wake Forest were nice, we like houses in established neighborhoods with trees, etc. We don't like the look of cookie cutter houses with clear cut trees.
We were really giddy over those types of houses that were available for a decent price. They were in established neighborhoods, with mature trees, all seemed to have 3 stories (instead of attics they have walk up stairs to playrooms/media rooms for the 3rd floor), they all had 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a huge yard, and lots of time so many side/back yard trees between houses you couldn't see your neighbors! Here are some pictures of houses we saw 
That night we met up with Jim's cousin Johnny and his new wife Meredith. We met at their townhome in the suburb of Apex (it is named that because it was the highest point on the railroad between DC and Jacksonville, FL). We all headed into downtown Raleigh and had Chinese food, then headed over to a little Irish bar for some Guinness.
Sunday we toured more areas of Raleigh with a realtor and then that evening we met Colleen's cousin Christine for some pizza and beer at a restaurant in downtown Durham near our hotel. That evening they began warning on TV about a winter storm that was approaching the area. They hadn't had snow in 3 or 4 years, and now they were predicting anywhere from 2 to 5 inches depending on the news station. That night, even before snow started falling, they started flashing closings on the TV. Not only were schools closed, but so were government offices, banks, private companies, etc. We couldn't believe that small of a forecast could shut down the city even before one flake started falling!
On Tuesday morning when we woke up, it was indeed snowing, but the roads were only wet and not snow covered. The snow was sticking to the ground and probably was no more than 2 to 3 inches, and the whole city seemed dead. They were telling people on the news to stay home, don't go out, etc. The roads were completely clear of snow! Crazy, you can tell they don't have snow often. Anyway, the City of Durham was one of the few places open that day (every other city in the metro area had closed their offices), so Jim was able to go to his interview at 8:30 am. It lasted until 2:00pm, what a long interview for him, and what a boring time for Colleen to sit in the hotel and wait. At least the innaguaration provided some entertainment for her. Finally the interview finished and we headed to downtown Raleigh. Jim wanted stop by the US DOT in Raleigh because he had applied online, and according to the online posting he was referred to the manager and was waiting for the interviewer to call him. We figured it couldn't hurt to stop by since he was all dressed up in a suit, he could drop off his resume again and let them know he was really interested. Well...the US government building in Raleigh was completely shut down. The big building housed all kinds of federal government offices such as the DOT, Department of Justice, Department of Health, etc, but they all had the day off! Here is a picture of the snow near downtown in a historic neighboord named Oakwood:
And here is snow at the state capitol:
That night we met up with Jim's cousin Johnny and his new wife Meredith. We met at their townhome in the suburb of Apex (it is named that because it was the highest point on the railroad between DC and Jacksonville, FL). We all headed into downtown Raleigh and had Chinese food, then headed over to a little Irish bar for some Guinness.Sunday we toured more areas of Raleigh with a realtor and then that evening we met Colleen's cousin Christine for some pizza and beer at a restaurant in downtown Durham near our hotel. That evening they began warning on TV about a winter storm that was approaching the area. They hadn't had snow in 3 or 4 years, and now they were predicting anywhere from 2 to 5 inches depending on the news station. That night, even before snow started falling, they started flashing closings on the TV. Not only were schools closed, but so were government offices, banks, private companies, etc. We couldn't believe that small of a forecast could shut down the city even before one flake started falling!
On Tuesday morning when we woke up, it was indeed snowing, but the roads were only wet and not snow covered. The snow was sticking to the ground and probably was no more than 2 to 3 inches, and the whole city seemed dead. They were telling people on the news to stay home, don't go out, etc. The roads were completely clear of snow! Crazy, you can tell they don't have snow often. Anyway, the City of Durham was one of the few places open that day (every other city in the metro area had closed their offices), so Jim was able to go to his interview at 8:30 am. It lasted until 2:00pm, what a long interview for him, and what a boring time for Colleen to sit in the hotel and wait. At least the innaguaration provided some entertainment for her. Finally the interview finished and we headed to downtown Raleigh. Jim wanted stop by the US DOT in Raleigh because he had applied online, and according to the online posting he was referred to the manager and was waiting for the interviewer to call him. We figured it couldn't hurt to stop by since he was all dressed up in a suit, he could drop off his resume again and let them know he was really interested. Well...the US government building in Raleigh was completely shut down. The big building housed all kinds of federal government offices such as the DOT, Department of Justice, Department of Health, etc, but they all had the day off! Here is a picture of the snow near downtown in a historic neighboord named Oakwood:
And here is snow at the state capitol:The snow was indeed pretty, especially with all the trees in Raleigh, even thought it was only 2-3 inches deep.
Jim's interview with the City of Durham went really well, they seemed to be ready to give him an offer as soon as they could get the official paperwork ready in the next few days. We need to make sure the job is a good fit for Jim, it is tempting to wait for the US DOT since a federal government job is as safe of a job as one can get and the pay would be higher than the City of Durham. We will have a big decision to make: we can take the Durham job; take a chance and wait for the US DOT; or just stay where we are for now. If we move, Colleen is going to get her masters in teaching at NC State. Wake County schools are the best in the area between the three counties, and they are hiring lots and lots of teachers because they can't keep up. (Unlike in San Diego where they laid off teachers due to the state budget crisis).
We also loved the dense forests, huge beautiful houses and were excited that for little more than our rent payment we could have a huge house, yard, etc. And we would be close to lots of our family that lives in New England and the midwest, but farther from Jim's family in Las Vegas. The mountains and ocean would be just a couple hours from us too. You can see way down the blog from October we spent some time in the mountains of North Carolina and they are really beautiful.
We also loved the dense forests, huge beautiful houses and were excited that for little more than our rent payment we could have a huge house, yard, etc. And we would be close to lots of our family that lives in New England and the midwest, but farther from Jim's family in Las Vegas. The mountains and ocean would be just a couple hours from us too. You can see way down the blog from October we spent some time in the mountains of North Carolina and they are really beautiful.
And...we dropped off Kylie at a doggie day camp for 5 days while we were gone. They said she had such a great time playing with the other dogs, playing fetch with balls, and "swimming" in their little pool they had there! Here are some pictures they took for us of Kylie:
We'll keep everyone updated on what we decide!
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