2017 - David Carr

Santa Claus

November 19, 2017/in Holly Springs/by David Carr

This week was the scheduled lighting of the Christmas tree at the large shopping area near our home, Holly Springs Towne Center. They had a light-up Christmas tree, bounce houses, face painting and Cinder, the fire prevention dog. There were vendors on hand to talk about their businesses and the Mayor was scheduled to light the Christmas tree. Unfortunately, the Mayor had a family emergency and didn’t make it, so the Fire Prevention Officer and Santa Claus lit the tree instead.

We went up there for a bit to check it out and let Brian meet Santa. They had a snow machine, which was pretty neat too. Brian got to practice catching snowflakes and he told Santa what he wanted for Christmas. He later advised us that he wanted to huge Christmas tree Santa had just lit, which he won’t be getting.

N.C. State Farmer’s Market

November 12, 2017/in Personal/by David Carr

Since moving to the area, we’ve noticed that Farmer’s Markets are a big thing around here. We have the Holly Springs Farmer’s Market, which is open weekly during the spring and summer; they’re open during winter, but it’s bi-weekly. The town of Apex (just down the road) has the Apex Farmer’s Market during the summer. Fuquay Varina, a town in the other direction, has their Grower’s Market.

None of these compare to Raleigh’s State Farmer’s Market. They’re not even close.

The State Farmer’s Market offers building and market space, as well as open air spots for North Carolina farmers to sell fresh produce, plants, and other specialty items produced on local farms.

The Raleigh Farmers Market is one of four regional Farmers Markets owned by the State of North Carolina and operated by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. These Farmers Markets are strategically located across the state to serve North Carolina farmers, both large and small.

The Farmer’s Building alone has 30,000 square feet and is filled with freshly baked goods, produce, flowers and plants. It smells amazing! We bought a couple of air plants in decorative pots for the house and some produce.

The market space is indoors (read as: warm break from the winter breeze!) and offers seafood, ice cream, canned goods and crafts. We scooped up some amazing Blackberry jam from The Berry Patch there.

This was our second trip (we went a couple weeks earlier with my Aunt and Uncle while they were in town) and it was only about 40° while we were there. We had a great time and it was an excellent place to get outdoors, walk around and enjoy time with friends or family, and also pick up some produce or other items that support local farmers and other businesses.

Halloween in Holly Springs

November 1, 2017/in Holly Springs, Parenting/by David Carr

Last night was our first Halloween here in Holly Springs. My wife loves holidays, and this one ranks near the top. She loves to decorate and she lives for handing out candy to all the little kids in cute costumes.

When we moved into our new house in Jacksonville back in 2008, she bought the best candy, dragged a couple camping chairs out to the end of the driveway to await the kiddos. We had six people stop by for candy. Six. Seriously.

Aside from the fact that we were a dead end road in our neighborhood (albeit one with a full block or more of houses past ours), there was a local church that did a Trunk-and-Treat event near us on the same night, and we’re pretty certain a lot of the kids end up going to that. Regardless, it was a huge let down and she was devastated.

The following years were similar, I think we probably had 20-25 kids last year.

HOLLY SPRINGS IS TOTALLY DIFFERENT!!

We probably saw between 250 and 300 kids last night. Little ones that were just learning to walk and older ones that are probably in high school. They just kept coming! Even after we ran out of candy (oops!) and turned the lights off, we occasionally got hopeful visitors testing the doorbell. It was a steady flow from 6pm to 8:30 or 8:45.

Brian had a blast — he dressed up as a skeleton — and got tons of candy that he really doesn’t need. We hung out with the grown-ups in adjoining houses and, as always, had a great time with them.

We’re already excited about next year!

Hollyfest

October 29, 2017/in Holly Springs/by David Carr

Hollyfest is an annual community celebration each Fall in Holly Springs. It features vendors (small businesses, charities, private schools, etc.) and plenty of activities for families, such as bounce houses, games, live music, etc.

My aunt and uncle were in town to visit so the five of us went to check it out.

We had been to something similar during the Fifth of July event a few months back and our son really had a blast. He rode a few rides and went through a couple bounce houses (including a two-story slide that seemed like a good idea beforehand but scared him when he actually started down it) and we all enjoyed walking around and exploring.

As usual, the Holly Springs Fire Department was there with Cinder, the fire dog. Brian had a chance to sit in a HSFD utility vehicle and “drive” it.

The Rotary Club was selling brisket sandwiches as a fundraiser and we kept getting a whiff of it as we walked around. They were really good. It was nice to sit down and enjoy the music in the shade, and spending time with my aunt and uncle is always great. We don’t see them very often, and now that we’ve moved out of Florida, it will undoubtedly be less frequent.

They had haunted hay rides later in the evening, but we already had plans to cook out on the grill for our guests, so maybe we’ll take that in next year.

Fire Station Open House

October 22, 2017/in Holly Springs, Parenting/by David Carr

The Holly Springs Fire Department holds an annual Fire Station Open House each October. They invite residents to tour the firehouse and learn about the fire department.

There’s a bunch of activities for kids as well, ranging from using a fire hose, sitting in the fire trucks, putting out a small fire with an extinguisher and, of course, meeting Cinder, the firedog.

We spent an hour or so up there and had a really nice time — Brian especially had a blast sitting in the fire trucks.

He also learned what it was like to use the fire hose to put out a fire. I wish I had video of how abruptly he turned on the hose. It was pretty spectacular.

The community outreach of our local fire department seems more pronounced than in Jacksonville, though in all fairness, this is a small town and their presence is much more detectable. I’ve had a number of interactions with members of the Holly Springs Fire Department and they’ve all been super positive. They’re very engaging with our son and I can’t count how many times they’ve encouraged me to just drop by the station for a visit with him. Oddly, given my background in law enforcement, I’ve had virtually no contact with our local police department, though I think they have similar community interactions.

North Carolina State Fair

October 20, 2017/in Personal/by David Carr

The North Carolina State Fair was first held in 1853 and has been at its present site since 1928. It draws a pretty significant crowd each year — last year reaching its second highest ever attendance with 1,028,364 visitors. The record was in 2010 when it saw 1,091,887 people attend. It’s held at the State Fairgrounds in Raleigh, about 20 minutes from our home.

Judging by the map, we only saw about 25% of what’s there. We went after our son woke from his nap, which means we didn’t get there until 3:30 or so, entering the park around 4:00. We left when he started getting punchy a little after 8:00, giving us four hours to explore and check out what’s there. We watched a BMX/Motocross stunt show by King BMX (you may have seen them on the X Games, Dew Tour & America’s Got Talent). We got some fair food (tator tots with ranch and bacon, gyro) and my son rode several of the rides in Kiddie Land.

In general, we didn’t see any of the exhibits or contents, or take in any of the adult rides. There was a ton there that we didn’t get to see, so if you have a little person in tow, you may want to play to do this in two trips, or maybe even get a babysitter for one of them.

Overall, we had a blast. The people-watching can’t be overstated. There were definitely some characters there. I never went to the fair in Jacksonville, but I assume it was very similar, albeit smaller in size.

More information about the fair can be found on their web site: http://www.ncstatefair.org/2017/index.htm

Ken’s Korny Corn Maze

September 30, 2017/in Holly Springs, Parenting/by David Carr

Fall is arriving and we decided to head out to explore the area again. My wife loves decorating for holidays and Halloween is right up near the top of her list.

Here are some of the things available at the Corn Maze:

Hay rides and games (corn hole, checkers, etc.),
Wooden monster truck, tractor and pirate ship to climb on/in,
Corn and hay barn for kids to play in, and
Six-acre corn maze with 2.5 miles of paths

They’re open September 22 to November 11 and have a haunted corn maze from October 20th, 21st, 27th, 28th and 30th and 31st.

They’re located at 3175 Benson Road, (Hwy. 50 South) in Garner, NC and you can find more information as well as directions on their web site: http://www.kenskornycornmaze.com/directions/

Exploring Harris Lake

September 4, 2017/in Holly Springs/by David Carr

There’s a county park a few miles from our home called Harris Lake. It’s actually home of the Shearon Harris Nuclear Plant, which is run by Duke Energy. We decided to go for a hike, even if just to get out of the house for a bit. The 680-acre park is situated on a peninsula near the Shearon Harris Reservoir in New Hill, N.C. – and is convenient to Raleigh, Cary, Apex, Holly Springs and Fuquay-Varina. In addition to hiking trails, there’s a lake for fishing and skiing (or just boating), bike trails (such as the Hog Run Mountain Bike Trail) and a disc golf course.

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Solar Eclipse

August 21, 2017/in Personal/by David Carr

In addition to being my son’s third birthday, there was was also a solar eclipse today. Here in central NC, we were expecting about 94% totality, which I mistakenly assumed that meant it would get fairly dark. Apparently 6% of unobstructed light from a star is still pretty significant.

My son is currently home sick from school (we were going to keep him out anyway to see the eclipse) with croup, having interpreted his birthday party the previous evening for an emergency room visit when he started to having trouble breathing. His fever of 102 has now broken and we spent 20-30 minutes outside during the peak of the eclipse watching the sun through our eclipse glasses.

If I learned anything today (other than that a non-totality eclipse doesn’t make it very dark outside) it’s that we would be more than willing to drive to the path of totality for the next one.