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1 week ago | 
ourstate.com | Katie Schanze |Rebecca Woltz |Tamiya Anderson |Lynn Wells
Murphy to Manteo: Finding new adventures, historic detours, and the soul of North Carolina on the state’s longest highway: U.S. Route 64. Read the series. I’m bobbing and weaving through a crowd as I chase after my toddler, who is surprisingly quick, despite his general lack of coordination or understanding of gravity.
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2 weeks ago | 
ourstate.com | Rebecca Woltz |Tamiya Anderson |Lynn Wells
SPONSORED BY Falling for Franklin & NantahalaTake a scenic drive through stunning fall colors, look for waterfalls, go fishing in crystal-clear water, and explore kid-friendly hikes in these two mountain communities within Nantahala National Forest. Your Guide to Franklin & NantahalaWithin Nantahala National Forest, just off the Appalachian Trail, Franklin welcomes travelers with outdoor adventures and small-town charm.
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3 weeks ago | 
ourstate.com | Rebecca Woltz |Tamiya Anderson |Lynn Wells |Mark Kemp
You open the front door of Madison Dry Goods and Country Store using the shop’s original 1908 handle. As you step onto the creaky wood floor, you smell cinnamon and brown sugar, hear the twang of bluegrass music playing over the speakers, and see local antiques lining the shelves. “When you walk in the door, you’re touching and you’re hearing and you’re feeling history,” says owner Michael “Smitty” Smith.
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3 weeks ago | 
ourstate.com | Jason Frye |Rebecca Woltz |Tamiya Anderson |Lynn Wells
The bar purrs. Ice rattles against a shaker, keeping rough time with the lo-fi blues spilling from the speakers. Around the room, conversations hum like bumblebees, floating over the clink and chime of glasses and silverware. At Nanas, time hangs suspended between past and present. There’s the decor — a contemporary homage to mid-century glamour and Ralph Lauren’s classic vision of American style. The menu — a mingling of familiar and reinterpreted classics.
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3 weeks ago | 
ourstate.com | Rebecca Woltz |Tamiya Anderson |Lynn Wells |Mark Kemp
The first thing that guests at Opal & West House see when they walk into the historic inn is a golden dogwood flower on a blue wall. The bloom was painted by Heather Stevens, who owns the inn with her husband, Seth, and their daughter, Lynsie, and is one of many personal touches that the family has added to the 1860 property in the Central Shelby Historic District. When the Stevenses bought the former residence in 2022, it had been empty for a decade.
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3 weeks ago | 
ourstate.com | Chloe Klingstedt |Rebecca Woltz |Tamiya Anderson |Lynn Wells
A bus from South Stokes High School sits in front of Mitchell’s Butchery. Inside the shop, a group of students crowd around the butcher table behind the meat coolers. Before them lies the culmination of their class project: half of a pig carcass. Most of the kids are dressed in jeans and boots. A few live on nearby farms. Some are on the livestock show team. Still others are part of Future Farmers of America (FFA). By now, they’re used to working with animals.
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3 weeks ago | 
ourstate.com | Kristin Davis |Rebecca Woltz |Tamiya Anderson |Lynn Wells
I’m not yet as tall as the chain-link fence at Herman Park, a green space spanning a city block in the center of Goldsboro. It’s a spring day in the early 1980s. The sprawling magnolias are blooming, their scent carrying on a breeze as warm as breath. It’s my first time standing on the dirt platform that serves as the station for the Kiwanis Special, a miniature train that runs around a quarter-mile track in one corner of the city’s oldest park.
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3 weeks ago | 
ourstate.com | Alan Hodge |Rebecca Woltz |Tamiya Anderson |Lynn Wells
More than 200 species of birds have been observed at Carrot Island, including Wilson’s plover. Answer No. 6 to learn which nature refuge the island is a part of. photograph by Jared Lloyd
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3 weeks ago | 
ourstate.com | Rebecca Woltz |Lauren Rhodes |Celia Funderburk |Tamiya Anderson
When self-made millionaire and Tasteless Chill Tonic inventor E.W. Grove dreamed of “the most elegant building in America,” the Grove Arcade was born. Opened in 1929, the mall has more than 50 businesses tucked throughout its hallways, from Jonny’s Barbershop to Bebette’s, a New Orleans coffeehouse.
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3 weeks ago | 
ourstate.com | Rebecca Woltz |Tamiya Anderson |Lynn Wells |Mark Kemp
Step inside Don Walton Jr.’s distillery in Jacksonville, and you see it. It’s in the center of the tasting room, a still made with country ingenuity: a black barrel, a stainless-steel drum, and a beer keg that served as a filter. Walton’s cousin Norwood Rochelle built this still, and the two of them used it to carry on a family tradition at Walton’s Distillery — making moonshine. The cousins relied on a recipe that generations of their family used to create this illegal liquor.
