Now that the weather is starting to get milder, it is time to get out and explore. We need to stretch our legs and our minds. If you get an itch to explore locally, enjoy this wonderful offering from the National Park Service.  Raleigh: A Capital City - A National Register of Historic Places Travel Itinerary When you are ready to roam, you can open this handy travel guide right on your phone to choose your day's adventure. There is a wonderful portable travel guide features a a brief overview on the town and a list of historical sites to visit. (Note - Use the links at the footer of the page. Quite a few of the links in the header are broken. There is a wealth of information still active and accessed at the bottom of the page.) One of these links you will want to keep handy is the one for the Early History of Raleigh  (bottom of page) but is a wonderful thumbnail sketch of  Raleigh's history from the days of Joel Lane up to the growth of suburbs im the mid-20th Century....

" Pilgrims held their second Thanksgiving celebration in 1623 to mark the end of a long drought that had threatened the year’s harvest and prompted Governor Bradford to call for a religious fast. Days of fasting and thanksgiving on an annual or occasional basis became common practice in other New England settlements as well. " - History.com If you are feeling overwhelmed with the early appearance of "Commercialmas" like I am, enjoy this Thankgiving Reader and push back on the retail encroachment on this season that we all really need to reflect on and respect. No matter whether you see the survivor settlers or the Native Americans who graciously contributed to their survival as the winners, we need to reflect on the solemn nature of this feast day and the reminder that we are all small parts of the village that saves us and we can't be a village if we all work at cross purposes. Enjoy this look at Thanksgiving through the lens of its history, traditions, and foo...

Request from Wake Treasures quarterly journal editor, Diane L. Richard:  Going forward, we would love to include more narrative pieces in the pages of the Wake Treasures Journal – case studies, family stories, short memory pieces of life back when, etc. Stories don’t need to be long or involved. They can be stories about family, about communities, about activities (church, sports, service organizations, scouts, schools, businesses, and so on), buildings and landmarks that existed and no longer do so, and the list is endless. Any bit of Wake County history involves people … History is invaluable to our genealogical research and our search into family histories provides value and context to history.  Do you live in Wake County and like me don’t have family here?  We all live and/or drive by places where history happened – let’s learn more about this history or share what we already do know! No Wake County ancestry is needed for these types of contributions. Ple...