October 24, 2023 • 19 mins
History, mountains, beaches, cities, arts -- that's just a part of North Carolina's treasures. Wit Tuttle, Executive Director of Visit North Carolina, enlightens us with captivating stories and insights. We talk of the vibrant Triangle area, with the cities of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. The journey continues to the thriving city of Charlotte. On to Asheville, with the famed Biltmore house. We discuss Cherokees and civil rights, arts and food.
On North Carolina's Outer Banks, there's everything from kite boarding and the history of the Wright Brothers, to the intriguing tale of Blackbeard. Wildlife includes wild horses and sea turtles.
And we end with a memory, centering on -- barbeque.
_____
Wit Tuttle is Executive Director of Visit North Carolina. He loves pulled pork!
_____
Podcast host Lea Lane blogs at forbes.com, has traveled to over 100 countries, and has written nine books, including the award-winning Places I Remember (Kirkus Reviews star rating, and 'one of the top 100 Indie books' of the year). She has contributed to many guidebooks and has written thousands of travel articles.
Contact Lea- she loves hearing from you! @lealane on Twitter; PlacesIRememberLeaLane on Insta; Places I Remember with Lea Lane on Facebook; Website: placesirememberlealane.com.
New episodes drop every other Tuesday, wherever you listen. Please consider sharing, following, rating and reviewing this award-winning travel podcast.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lea Lane (00:00):
North Carolina offers travelers mountains, beaches,
dynamic cities, history, crafts,culture, a foodie scene and a
beverage scene, relaxation andfun.
We're going to explore itspleasures with our guest, Wit
Tuttle, Executive Director ofVisit North Carolina.
Welcome, Wit, to Places IRemember.
Wit Tuttle (00:20):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Lea Lane (00:22):
Long ago I was a counselor at a summer camp in
Hendersonville, North Carolina.
I never forgot it and I'vereturned to the state many times
since to recharge and relax.
Let's start talking about someof the pleasures of North
Carolina.
We'll start with the majorcities.
The Triangle is in the Piedmontregion -- Raleigh, Durham and
Chapel Hill, and it's home toNorth Carolina State University,
(00:44):
Duke University and theUniversity of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill.
Tell us some of the highlightsof that area.
Wit Tuttle (00:51):
Yeah, so the great part about the Triangle is
they're unique and distinctmid-sized cities so you're not
overwhelmed by it, but you doget the great amenities you get
with bigger towns.
Raleigh has an amazing museumscene.
Almost all the museums here arefree, being part of the state
capital, great stuff to seethere.
Durham is a funky, cool townwith a great vibe to it.
(01:12):
One of my favorite things to doup there is the Durham Bulls,
of course, the classic minorleague baseball team.
Their stadium is amazing.
You can also, a couple of timesa year, teams will play in the
old Durham Bulls Athletic Parkstadium, which is where the
movie Bull Durham was filmed.
Lea Lane (01:29):
Yeah, it's classic.
I also took a tour of Duke.
It's a beautiful campus.
Just to stroll around there andhave lunch or dinner you can .
.
.
magnificent.
Wit Tuttle (01:37):
Exactly Great restaurants and neat scene
around there.
The Duke campus is beautiful.
The chapel there is wonderful.
You're a basketball fan, it'sheaven.
You can watch the CameronCrazies lineup before a game.
If you don't like Duke, go totheir Carolina Basketball Museum
and get the other side.
Lea Lane (01:54):
Yeah, it's heaven, as you said, for basketball lovers.
Now Charlotte's another citythat's become really in i.
What's not to miss there?
Wit Tuttle (02:03):
Charlotte's a fantastic city.
It's got so much going on forit.
I tell a lot of people thataren't familiar with the South
One of the great things to dothere is start with the Levine
Museum of the New South.
It's really a great thing.
That kind of shows how theSouth has changed over the years
, basically gone from cottonfields to skyscrapers.
That's a great start.
Of course, most people go tothe track.
(02:24):
The Charlotte Motor Speedwayhost two NASCAR races, including
the Pepsi 600, Coca Cola 600,which is one of the longest
races in NASCAR.
Nascar Hall of Fame is theretoo, which is really interesting
.
What I think is really cool isabout 80% of the teams in NASCAR
are based in that area.
So even if there's not a race,you can go out to some of these
team headquarters and see themworking on the cars, you can
(02:47):
meet the drivers, you can take atour.
So it's really just the heartof motorsports really is there
in.
Lea Lane (02:53):
Charlotte.
Wit Tuttle (02:54):
It's a great place to see.
Lea Lane (02:55):
Now tell us about the Gantt Center.
It's a great destination.
Tell us why.
Wit Tuttle (03:00):
Yeah, so the Gantt Center focuses on African
American heritage and that storyas it relates to North Carolina
.
Really important.
We have a few sites in NorthCarolina.
We're just creating an AfricanAmerican and civil rights trail
for the state and the GanttCenter is one of the
centerpieces to that.
It's a really amazing modernfacility there in Charlotte that
you can see part of severalother spots you can tour that
(03:23):
focus on civil rights and theAfrican American experience.
Lea Lane (03:26):
There's some beautiful quilt designs from the
Underground Railroad Era andwoven textile patterns from West
Africa.
It's a beautiful setting aswell in there, and another great
maybe it's on the trail inGreensboro the International
Civil Rights Center and Museum.
That's very moving.
Tell us about that.
Wit Tuttle (03:42):
It is.
This is one of the most movingplaces you'll go and see.
I was there one time and thisis actually the start of this
sit-in movement.
It was a Woolworth's drug storethat had a lunch counter in
1960.
Yep, four students from NorthCarolina A&T University came and
did a sit-in because theyweren't allowed to be served
there, and it really kicked offthe sit-in movement across the
(04:05):
US.
It's now a museum.
The barstools in the lunchcounter have been recreated.
It's amazing.
I think it's really neat.
A lot of the people thatparticipated in that experience
are still there, because thereare four students that started
it, but there were hundreds ofstudents and locals that
participated in it and they'restill around and they can talk
to you about it.
I heard from a guy namedCharlie Best who worked at the
(04:27):
Woolworth's and was actually oneof the first African American
people served, because when theydecided they would serve
African Americans, they wantedto serve their staff first.
So he got to be the firstperson to eat at that lunch
counter and he said it was thegreatest meatloaf he'd ever had
in his life.
And so when you hear that andyou talk to those people, it's
just really an amazingexperience.
Lea Lane (04:46):
It's terrific that it's there and that it's
celebrated Now.
One of my very favorite citiesin the country is Asheville in
Western North Carolina's BlueRidge Mountains.
It's artsy and gorgeous.
What should we look for that'sspecial there?
Wit Tuttle (05:00):
Well, if you're going to go to Asheville, it's a
must that you do the Biltmoreestate.
Biltmore is amazing.
It's America's largest privatehome.
We're talking 250 rooms, 34bedrooms, 43 bathrooms.
It's basically an Americancastle.
You know this was theVanderbilt family summer mansion
and the crew there has justdone an amazing job.
They transform it during theseasons.
(05:21):
If you go during the Christmasseason it's unbelievable All the
Christmas trees they have.
It also hosts America's mostvisited winery.
There's a lot of things to doon site.
You can tour the campus.
It's thousands of acres.
It's just a really interesting,fascinating mountain experience
.
Fits right in with the vibe ofAsheville, which is kind of a
(05:41):
cool, hip mountain town.
It's nice and cool in thesummer, not too cold in the
winter, Great lodging there.
There's a place called the OmniGrove Park Inn.
It's a classic old 1920s placewhere F Scott Fitzgerald stayed.
They have a ghost, the pinklady, that sometimes visits you.
Just really neat stuff and agreat food and drink scene.
The beer capital of the Southfor craft beer there.
Lea Lane (06:05):
Well, I love the River Arts District.
There are 23 former industrialand historical buildings and I
walked in some of them.
They're beautiful buildingsfrom the past, but they've got
this great manner of paintingsand ceramics and handmade
jewelry.
Wit Tuttle (06:18):
Down on the River Arts District is amazing.
You can go into all those shopsand there's a really great
barbecue joint there.
Lea Lane (06:25):
Oh really, what is it?
Wit Tuttle (06:26):
It's called 12 Bones .
(Oh, yes, I've heard of it yes, great barbecue, but the arts
scene there they have, Ashevillehas done a fantastic job
providing that area.
You could spend a whole daythere.
Lea Lane (06:36):
Also there's the Folk Art Center.
It's home to the SouthernHighland Craft Guild, which
dates back to the 1890s, andthere you get more crafty stuff.
There's a craft shop there forgreat shopping.
If you look for interestingthings, americana, this is where
you would want to go.
Wit Tuttle (06:51):
Exactly so.
The Blue Ridge Parkway windsthrough 25 of our counties there
and it's one of the nationalpark sites, basically a road
built on top of the mountains,through the Appalachians.
And the craft guild there,right in Asheville, right on the
Blue Ridge Parkway, is a greatway you can see a lot of these
southern traditional artworksand pick up a piece for your own
.
So it's a great introduction tothe mountains and the
(07:13):
Appalachians and you can headfrom Asheville.
You can go up the parkway andsee there are about 300
overlooks.
You can just see the fantasticscenery and get the whole
mountain experience.
Lea Lane (07:24):
It's gorgeous.
We've driven it many times.
There's also an Asheville urbantrail.
It's 1.7 miles around the cityand it's a perfect way to see
Asheville.
I think there are 30 stops andthere's a public sculpture at
each one, and do a loop and yousee all the interesting spots.
Wit Tuttle (07:40):
Asheville is an extremely walkable town.
It's got some great history andsome really interesting
architecture there, as well asthe sculptures you're seeing, so
that urban trail is a neat wayto see the city.
Lea Lane (07:51):
Nearby is Piscah National Forest.
It's 500,000 acres and it's 25miles from downtown Asheville
and I remember that again frommy camping.
Yeah, I loved it.
Wit Tuttle (08:03):
You can drive through the Pisca National
Forest on the parkway, greatspot for hikes.
You get to really see thatnatural scenic beauty that North
Carolina is known forwaterfalls, just about
everything you can get out there.
Lea Lane (08:15):
Yeah, great Smoky Mountains National Park is on
the border between NorthCarolina and Tennessee.
There are questions always thatgreat Smokies versus the Blue
Ridge.
It's the same thing, right, oneis part of the other.
Wit Tuttle (08:26):
Well, they're two different mountains, they're
both a subset of the AppalachianMountains, but the Smokies are
really kind of distinct anddifferent.
If you keep going south andwest from Asheville on the
parkway, you'll eventually windup in the Smokies.
You can tell there's a bit of adifference there.
The mountains they have thisgray haze that sits with them
that's considered to smoke.
It's also a bit more rural.
I think it's a bit more outthere.
(08:46):
There's great whitewater,rafting, all kinds of things to
do out in the Smokies.
I love it.
It's one of my favorite partsof the state.
Right, tell us a bit about theNative American Cherokee
heritage in North Carolina Iknow there's a great arts center
, Koala Arts at Crafts and tellus yeah, if you continue on that
Blue Ridge Parkway south fromAsheville, the parkway ends at
(09:07):
the entrance to the Great SmokyMountains National Park which is
in a town called Cherokee thatarea actually it's called the
Koala Boundary.
It's the eastern band ofCherokee Indians land there.
It's actually the ancestralhome of the American Cherokee
Indians.
This is where they believetheir race started thousands of
years ago.
There's some really fascinatingthings you can do and see there
(09:28):
that relate to the history ofthe American Cherokee Indian.
This is where the trail oftears started.
The eastern band actually wentup into the mountains and didn't
leave.
They came back down once.
The trail of tears that thepeople had been marched out
basically worked with somepeople to be able to keep their
own homeland.
It's really a fantasticexperience.
(09:49):
The Koala Arts Mutual there.
They do a great job showing theCherokee woven baskets and lots
of other handicrafts.
What I think is reallyfascinating is there's a place
called the Museum of theCherokee Indian.
There they talk a lot aboutthings like the language.
The Cherokee language almostwent extinct.
They were forced to speakEnglish and not to speak
(10:09):
Cherokee.
There was a guy named Sequoiathat helped them revive their
language and keep it alive.
Just some fascinating storieslike that about how the Cherokee
have persevered in America thatyou can get at the Museum of
Cherokee Indian.
During the summers there'sreally great up in the mountains
.
There's an outdoor drama thatthey do every year called Unto
these Hills.
That tells the story of theCherokee Indian in an open
(10:32):
theater out in the woods.
Right next to it is arecreation of an 1800s Indian
village called the O'ConnorLoughdie Indian Village.
Those three things to see arereally a remarkable way to just
learn about the Cherokeeheritage.
Lea Lane (10:44):
Well, let's leave the mountains and head for the beach
.
North Carolina is home to themost picturesque beaches and
tallest dunes in the easternUnited States the Outer Banks,
which is a string of peninsulaand barrier islands stretching
over 100 miles of Atlanticseashore off the coast.
What are specifics that makethis place so special?
Wit Tuttle (11:03):
So our beaches are different than any beach you're
going to find anywhere else onthe eastern US or probably the
western coast.
These are undeveloped barrierislands.
Almost all barrier islands inthe world are right up on the
coast, while the Outer Banks,these barrier islands, are 25
miles out into the ocean.
So it's this thin strip of landthat's surrounded by ocean on
(11:26):
each side.
So it's a completely differentbeach experience than you're
going to get anywhere else.
And most of the areas are stillfairly undeveloped.
They're part of the nationalseashores.
There's the Cape HatterasNational Seashore and the Cape
Lookout National Seashore, sothese areas can't be developed.
So you're talking beach, sanddune and ocean.
It's cold and rough.
(11:46):
They're good surfing water.
So if you want more of the calmwater, then you got to go down
to Brunswick Sunset Beach.
That area of North Carolinawhich is a little more sheltered
from the waves and better forlittle kids, but at the Outer
Banks is great for surfing.
Kiteboarding.
The Wright Brothers chose thisarea because it's so far out.
It has constant wind blowing onthese islands and so they
(12:08):
needed constant wind to do thefirst flight so you can actually
go to the place.
That's the birthplace ofaviation, where the Wright
Brothers did the first flight.
That wind, you can use it tokiteboard, you can use it to
parasail, you can use it to hangglide all different kinds of
activities.
Lea Lane (12:24):
I could just see the Wright Brothers today hang
gliding over the beach.
It would have been a sitethat's probably what it looked a
little bit like back then thatwas what 1903 or (1903).
I remember that from schoolright.
Roanoke Island is where SirWalter Raleigh came, the site of
England's first settlement inthe New World.
Wit Tuttle (12:44):
Yeah, there's some amazing history out in this area
because Sir Walter Raleigh came.
The Roanoke Island FestivalPark celebrates that place where
the first European settlementin the US and it actually turned
into a thing called the LostColony Because when Sir Walter
Raleigh came back to find hiscolony they were gone and no one
really knows what happened tothose settlers, so it's a great
(13:05):
mystery.
There's also an outdoor dramathere called the Lost Colony
that you can see and there'sjust still so much undeveloped
beach there in areas.
If you go up north into an areacalled Currituck to Corrala,
the road ends and you canactually drive on the sand and
we still have wild horses thatrun on those beaches and those
are descendants of SpanishMustangs that came over with the
(13:27):
first settlers in the 1500s, ofthe Spanish and the English who
were trying to colonize America.
These horses are still roamingon those beaches.
So you'll find all sorts ofhistory like that still alive
and happening today on the Outer.
Lea Lane (13:40):
Bay that's so romantic .
There's also sea turtles thathatch on some of these beaches.
It's the extreme northernlimits of some of these turtles
nesting ground, so maybe there'sa way to see this.
Wit Tuttle (13:51):
Yeah, there's a fantastic place to see that.
It's called the Karen BeasleySea Turtle Center in Surf City
on the coast of North Carolina.
They rescue a lot of these seaturtles.
They'll go out and protect thenests.
You can find nests all up anddown the coast during the mating
season.
So you're going to want to bevery careful if you do find a
nest, because sea turtles areendangered and they're protected
(14:13):
.
But the Karen Beasley people doa fantastic job.
They do releases so you canfind out when they're going to
release the sea turtle andactually go out to the beach and
watch these sea turtles get putback in the sea.
And sea turtles are just thesebeautiful creatures that we
should do everything we can tohelp protect.
Lea Lane (14:29):
Absolutely.
You've got such an interestingcoast, you have lighthouses and
you have a story of pirates.
Tell us about Blackbeard inNorth Carolina.
Wit Tuttle (14:37):
Okay, now, this is one of my favorite stories about
North Carolina, so a lot ofpeople don't realize Blackbeard
was a real pirate.
He was a real person and he wasbased in North Carolina.
There's some speculation thathe might have been from North
Carolina because he was veryfamiliar with the shallow
waterways and inland areas ofthe state that he probably only
would have known had he maybegrown up here.
(14:59):
But what happened in the endwas that Blackbeard died
actually on North Carolina'scoast.
First he wrecked his ship,something intentionally, and so
that wreck has been found, andso there's a couple of different
sites where you can go and seesome of the things that have
been recovered from the ship.
There's a great maritime museumin Carterette County.
There's also East CarolinaUniversity in Greenville.
(15:22):
They have the lab where they'rerestoring a lot of the
artifacts.
So there's a couple places youcan go see that thing, or you
can go out to the area whereBlackbeard was actually killed.
So what happened was he went upto Oak Creek, Oak Island and he
basically was hanging out o OakIsland when the English sent
some military troops down.
There was this big sea battleright off the coast of Ocracoke
(15:46):
Island, in the shallow waters.
Lea Lane (15:47):
When was this?
Wit Tuttle (15:48):
This was in 1715, I think in the early 1700s, so we
had just celebrated the 300thanniversary.
But every year Ocracoke Islanddoes a pirate festival where
they reenact Blackbeard's lastdays, and there's a place called
Springer's Point where you cango.
That's actually the site wherethis battle happened and where
Blackbeard was killed, and whenthey killed him they cut off his
(16:11):
head and brought the head backto Virginia, but they left his
body there, so you can go to theexact spot where Blackbeard's
body is still floating around,probably haunting people.
It's a great spot.
Okra coke itself a reallyspecial place.
It's only accessible by ferryand it's one of the really true
places where you can still getout there and have a wonderful
(16:33):
experience on the coast.
Lea Lane (16:34):
Fabulous.
Well, the name of the podcastis Places I Remember.
So, Wit, please would you giveus a personal memory of yours
about North Carolina.
Wit Tuttle (16:43):
OK, so one of my favorite memories is got to be
eating barbecue at LexingtonBarbecue, because what I think
is fantastic about this place is, if you go to a barbecue joint
and I'll talk about myexperience at Lexington Barbecue
, but it's really any barbecuejoint across the state and there
are hundreds of them it's oneof the places where people
(17:04):
really mix and integrate more sothan ever.
You'll see Black people, you'llsee White people, you'll see
Hispanic people, you'll see richpeople, you'll see poor people,
you'll see everybody gettingalong, sitting together, eating
together, and I just thinkthat's a wonderful experience
that we all need throughout thiscountry, and barbecue
(17:25):
restaurants are one of theplaces you'll really see that,
where everybody sits, everybodytalks and we all realize how
much we have in common ratherthan how much is pulling us
apart.
So that's my favoriteexperience about North Carolina
is just going to a barbecuejoint, hanging out and watching
people get along.
Lea Lane (17:41):
Wow, that's the solution, I hope, to what ails
us --having a rib or pulled pork.
Wit Tuttle (17:48):
Barbecue exactly.
Barbecue saved the world.
Lea Lane (17:51):
Oh boy.
Well, thank you, Wi .
l head a Visit t North Carolinafor your expertise and your
memories.
You have a beautiful state.
It's so interesting.
I hope everybody listens andgoes.
There's so much to do and see.
Thank you.
Wit Tuttle (18:04):
Thanks a lot.
Thanks for having me.
North Carolina offers travelers mountains, beaches,
dynamic cities, history, crafts,culture, a foodie scene and a
beverage scene, relaxation andfun.
We're going to explore itspleasures with our guest, Wit
Tuttle, Executive Director ofVisit North Carolina.
Welcome, Wit, to Places IRemember.
Wit Tuttle (00:20):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Lea Lane (00:22):
Long ago I was a counselor at a summer camp in
Hendersonville, North Carolina.
I never forgot it and I'vereturned to the state many times
since to recharge and relax.
Let's start talking about someof the pleasures of North
Carolina.
We'll start with the majorcities.
The Triangle is in the Piedmontregion -- Raleigh, Durham and
Chapel Hill, and it's home toNorth Carolina State University,
(00:44):
Duke University and theUniversity of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill.
Tell us some of the highlightsof that area.
Wit Tuttle (00:51):
Yeah, so the great part about the Triangle is
they're unique and distinctmid-sized cities so you're not
overwhelmed by it, but you doget the great amenities you get
with bigger towns.
Raleigh has an amazing museumscene.
Almost all the museums here arefree, being part of the state
capital, great stuff to seethere.
Durham is a funky, cool townwith a great vibe to it.
(01:12):
One of my favorite things to doup there is the Durham Bulls,
of course, the classic minorleague baseball team.
Their stadium is amazing.
You can also, a couple of timesa year, teams will play in the
old Durham Bulls Athletic Parkstadium, which is where the
movie Bull Durham was filmed.
Lea Lane (01:29):
Yeah, it's classic.
I also took a tour of Duke.
It's a beautiful campus.
Just to stroll around there andhave lunch or dinner you can .
.
.
magnificent.
Wit Tuttle (01:37):
Exactly Great restaurants and neat scene
around there.
The Duke campus is beautiful.
The chapel there is wonderful.
You're a basketball fan, it'sheaven.
You can watch the CameronCrazies lineup before a game.
If you don't like Duke, go totheir Carolina Basketball Museum
and get the other side.
Lea Lane (01:54):
Yeah, it's heaven, as you said, for basketball lovers.
Now Charlotte's another citythat's become really in i.
What's not to miss there?
Wit Tuttle (02:03):
Charlotte's a fantastic city.
It's got so much going on forit.
I tell a lot of people thataren't familiar with the South
One of the great things to dothere is start with the Levine
Museum of the New South.
It's really a great thing.
That kind of shows how theSouth has changed over the years
, basically gone from cottonfields to skyscrapers.
That's a great start.
Of course, most people go tothe track.
(02:24):
The Charlotte Motor Speedwayhost two NASCAR races, including
the Pepsi 600, Coca Cola 600,which is one of the longest
races in NASCAR.
Nascar Hall of Fame is theretoo, which is really interesting
.
What I think is really cool isabout 80% of the teams in NASCAR
are based in that area.
So even if there's not a race,you can go out to some of these
team headquarters and see themworking on the cars, you can
(02:47):
meet the drivers, you can take atour.
So it's really just the heartof motorsports really is there
in.
Lea Lane (02:53):
Charlotte.
Wit Tuttle (02:54):
It's a great place to see.
Lea Lane (02:55):
Now tell us about the Gantt Center.
It's a great destination.
Tell us why.
Wit Tuttle (03:00):
Yeah, so the Gantt Center focuses on African
American heritage and that storyas it relates to North Carolina
.
Really important.
We have a few sites in NorthCarolina.
We're just creating an AfricanAmerican and civil rights trail
for the state and the GanttCenter is one of the
centerpieces to that.
It's a really amazing modernfacility there in Charlotte that
you can see part of severalother spots you can tour that
(03:23):
focus on civil rights and theAfrican American experience.
Lea Lane (03:26):
There's some beautiful quilt designs from the
Underground Railroad Era andwoven textile patterns from West
Africa.
It's a beautiful setting aswell in there, and another great
maybe it's on the trail inGreensboro the International
Civil Rights Center and Museum.
That's very moving.
Tell us about that.
Wit Tuttle (03:42):
It is.
This is one of the most movingplaces you'll go and see.
I was there one time and thisis actually the start of this
sit-in movement.
It was a Woolworth's drug storethat had a lunch counter in
1960.
Yep, four students from NorthCarolina A&T University came and
did a sit-in because theyweren't allowed to be served
there, and it really kicked offthe sit-in movement across the
(04:05):
US.
It's now a museum.
The barstools in the lunchcounter have been recreated.
It's amazing.
I think it's really neat.
A lot of the people thatparticipated in that experience
are still there, because thereare four students that started
it, but there were hundreds ofstudents and locals that
participated in it and they'restill around and they can talk
to you about it.
I heard from a guy namedCharlie Best who worked at the
(04:27):
Woolworth's and was actually oneof the first African American
people served, because when theydecided they would serve
African Americans, they wantedto serve their staff first.
So he got to be the firstperson to eat at that lunch
counter and he said it was thegreatest meatloaf he'd ever had
in his life.
And so when you hear that andyou talk to those people, it's
just really an amazingexperience.
Lea Lane (04:46):
It's terrific that it's there and that it's
celebrated Now.
One of my very favorite citiesin the country is Asheville in
Western North Carolina's BlueRidge Mountains.
It's artsy and gorgeous.
What should we look for that'sspecial there?
Wit Tuttle (05:00):
Well, if you're going to go to Asheville, it's a
must that you do the Biltmoreestate.
Biltmore is amazing.
It's America's largest privatehome.
We're talking 250 rooms, 34bedrooms, 43 bathrooms.
It's basically an Americancastle.
You know this was theVanderbilt family summer mansion
and the crew there has justdone an amazing job.
They transform it during theseasons.
(05:21):
If you go during the Christmasseason it's unbelievable All the
Christmas trees they have.
It also hosts America's mostvisited winery.
There's a lot of things to doon site.
You can tour the campus.
It's thousands of acres.
It's just a really interesting,fascinating mountain experience
.
Fits right in with the vibe ofAsheville, which is kind of a
(05:41):
cool, hip mountain town.
It's nice and cool in thesummer, not too cold in the
winter, Great lodging there.
There's a place called the OmniGrove Park Inn.
It's a classic old 1920s placewhere F Scott Fitzgerald stayed.
They have a ghost, the pinklady, that sometimes visits you.
Just really neat stuff and agreat food and drink scene.
The beer capital of the Southfor craft beer there.
Lea Lane (06:05):
Well, I love the River Arts District.
There are 23 former industrialand historical buildings and I
walked in some of them.
They're beautiful buildingsfrom the past, but they've got
this great manner of paintingsand ceramics and handmade
jewelry.
Wit Tuttle (06:18):
Down on the River Arts District is amazing.
You can go into all those shopsand there's a really great
barbecue joint there.
Lea Lane (06:25):
Oh really, what is it?
Wit Tuttle (06:26):
It's called 12 Bones .
(Oh, yes, I've heard of it yes, great barbecue, but the arts
scene there they have, Ashevillehas done a fantastic job
providing that area.
You could spend a whole daythere.
Lea Lane (06:36):
Also there's the Folk Art Center.
It's home to the SouthernHighland Craft Guild, which
dates back to the 1890s, andthere you get more crafty stuff.
There's a craft shop there forgreat shopping.
If you look for interestingthings, americana, this is where
you would want to go.
Wit Tuttle (06:51):
Exactly so.
The Blue Ridge Parkway windsthrough 25 of our counties there
and it's one of the nationalpark sites, basically a road
built on top of the mountains,through the Appalachians.
And the craft guild there,right in Asheville, right on the
Blue Ridge Parkway, is a greatway you can see a lot of these
southern traditional artworksand pick up a piece for your own
.
So it's a great introduction tothe mountains and the
(07:13):
Appalachians and you can headfrom Asheville.
You can go up the parkway andsee there are about 300
overlooks.
You can just see the fantasticscenery and get the whole
mountain experience.
Lea Lane (07:24):
It's gorgeous.
We've driven it many times.
There's also an Asheville urbantrail.
It's 1.7 miles around the cityand it's a perfect way to see
Asheville.
I think there are 30 stops andthere's a public sculpture at
each one, and do a loop and yousee all the interesting spots.
Wit Tuttle (07:40):
Asheville is an extremely walkable town.
It's got some great history andsome really interesting
architecture there, as well asthe sculptures you're seeing, so
that urban trail is a neat wayto see the city.
Lea Lane (07:51):
Nearby is Piscah National Forest.
It's 500,000 acres and it's 25miles from downtown Asheville
and I remember that again frommy camping.
Yeah, I loved it.
Wit Tuttle (08:03):
You can drive through the Pisca National
Forest on the parkway, greatspot for hikes.
You get to really see thatnatural scenic beauty that North
Carolina is known forwaterfalls, just about
everything you can get out there.
Lea Lane (08:15):
Yeah, great Smoky Mountains National Park is on
the border between NorthCarolina and Tennessee.
There are questions always thatgreat Smokies versus the Blue
Ridge.
It's the same thing, right, oneis part of the other.
Wit Tuttle (08:26):
Well, they're two different mountains, they're
both a subset of the AppalachianMountains, but the Smokies are
really kind of distinct anddifferent.
If you keep going south andwest from Asheville on the
parkway, you'll eventually windup in the Smokies.
You can tell there's a bit of adifference there.
The mountains they have thisgray haze that sits with them
that's considered to smoke.
It's also a bit more rural.
I think it's a bit more outthere.
(08:46):
There's great whitewater,rafting, all kinds of things to
do out in the Smokies.
I love it.
It's one of my favorite partsof the state.
Right, tell us a bit about theNative American Cherokee
heritage in North Carolina Iknow there's a great arts center
, Koala Arts at Crafts and tellus yeah, if you continue on that
Blue Ridge Parkway south fromAsheville, the parkway ends at
(09:07):
the entrance to the Great SmokyMountains National Park which is
in a town called Cherokee thatarea actually it's called the
Koala Boundary.
It's the eastern band ofCherokee Indians land there.
It's actually the ancestralhome of the American Cherokee
Indians.
This is where they believetheir race started thousands of
years ago.
There's some really fascinatingthings you can do and see there
(09:28):
that relate to the history ofthe American Cherokee Indian.
This is where the trail oftears started.
The eastern band actually wentup into the mountains and didn't
leave.
They came back down once.
The trail of tears that thepeople had been marched out
basically worked with somepeople to be able to keep their
own homeland.
It's really a fantasticexperience.
(09:49):
The Koala Arts Mutual there.
They do a great job showing theCherokee woven baskets and lots
of other handicrafts.
What I think is reallyfascinating is there's a place
called the Museum of theCherokee Indian.
There they talk a lot aboutthings like the language.
The Cherokee language almostwent extinct.
They were forced to speakEnglish and not to speak
(10:09):
Cherokee.
There was a guy named Sequoiathat helped them revive their
language and keep it alive.
Just some fascinating storieslike that about how the Cherokee
have persevered in America thatyou can get at the Museum of
Cherokee Indian.
During the summers there'sreally great up in the mountains
.
There's an outdoor drama thatthey do every year called Unto
these Hills.
That tells the story of theCherokee Indian in an open
(10:32):
theater out in the woods.
Right next to it is arecreation of an 1800s Indian
village called the O'ConnorLoughdie Indian Village.
Those three things to see arereally a remarkable way to just
learn about the Cherokeeheritage.
Lea Lane (10:44):
Well, let's leave the mountains and head for the beach
.
North Carolina is home to themost picturesque beaches and
tallest dunes in the easternUnited States the Outer Banks,
which is a string of peninsulaand barrier islands stretching
over 100 miles of Atlanticseashore off the coast.
What are specifics that makethis place so special?
Wit Tuttle (11:03):
So our beaches are different than any beach you're
going to find anywhere else onthe eastern US or probably the
western coast.
These are undeveloped barrierislands.
Almost all barrier islands inthe world are right up on the
coast, while the Outer Banks,these barrier islands, are 25
miles out into the ocean.
So it's this thin strip of landthat's surrounded by ocean on
(11:26):
each side.
So it's a completely differentbeach experience than you're
going to get anywhere else.
And most of the areas are stillfairly undeveloped.
They're part of the nationalseashores.
There's the Cape HatterasNational Seashore and the Cape
Lookout National Seashore, sothese areas can't be developed.
So you're talking beach, sanddune and ocean.
It's cold and rough.
(11:46):
They're good surfing water.
So if you want more of the calmwater, then you got to go down
to Brunswick Sunset Beach.
That area of North Carolinawhich is a little more sheltered
from the waves and better forlittle kids, but at the Outer
Banks is great for surfing.
Kiteboarding.
The Wright Brothers chose thisarea because it's so far out.
It has constant wind blowing onthese islands and so they
(12:08):
needed constant wind to do thefirst flight so you can actually
go to the place.
That's the birthplace ofaviation, where the Wright
Brothers did the first flight.
That wind, you can use it tokiteboard, you can use it to
parasail, you can use it to hangglide all different kinds of
activities.
Lea Lane (12:24):
I could just see the Wright Brothers today hang
gliding over the beach.
It would have been a sitethat's probably what it looked a
little bit like back then thatwas what 1903 or (1903).
I remember that from schoolright.
Roanoke Island is where SirWalter Raleigh came, the site of
England's first settlement inthe New World.
Wit Tuttle (12:44):
Yeah, there's some amazing history out in this area
because Sir Walter Raleigh came.
The Roanoke Island FestivalPark celebrates that place where
the first European settlementin the US and it actually turned
into a thing called the LostColony Because when Sir Walter
Raleigh came back to find hiscolony they were gone and no one
really knows what happened tothose settlers, so it's a great
(13:05):
mystery.
There's also an outdoor dramathere called the Lost Colony
that you can see and there'sjust still so much undeveloped
beach there in areas.
If you go up north into an areacalled Currituck to Corrala,
the road ends and you canactually drive on the sand and
we still have wild horses thatrun on those beaches and those
are descendants of SpanishMustangs that came over with the
(13:27):
first settlers in the 1500s, ofthe Spanish and the English who
were trying to colonize America.
These horses are still roamingon those beaches.
So you'll find all sorts ofhistory like that still alive
and happening today on the Outer.
Lea Lane (13:40):
Bay that's so romantic .
There's also sea turtles thathatch on some of these beaches.
It's the extreme northernlimits of some of these turtles
nesting ground, so maybe there'sa way to see this.
Wit Tuttle (13:51):
Yeah, there's a fantastic place to see that.
It's called the Karen BeasleySea Turtle Center in Surf City
on the coast of North Carolina.
They rescue a lot of these seaturtles.
They'll go out and protect thenests.
You can find nests all up anddown the coast during the mating
season.
So you're going to want to bevery careful if you do find a
nest, because sea turtles areendangered and they're protected
(14:13):
.
But the Karen Beasley people doa fantastic job.
They do releases so you canfind out when they're going to
release the sea turtle andactually go out to the beach and
watch these sea turtles get putback in the sea.
And sea turtles are just thesebeautiful creatures that we
should do everything we can tohelp protect.
Lea Lane (14:29):
Absolutely.
You've got such an interestingcoast, you have lighthouses and
you have a story of pirates.
Tell us about Blackbeard inNorth Carolina.
Wit Tuttle (14:37):
Okay, now, this is one of my favorite stories about
North Carolina, so a lot ofpeople don't realize Blackbeard
was a real pirate.
He was a real person and he wasbased in North Carolina.
There's some speculation thathe might have been from North
Carolina because he was veryfamiliar with the shallow
waterways and inland areas ofthe state that he probably only
would have known had he maybegrown up here.
(14:59):
But what happened in the endwas that Blackbeard died
actually on North Carolina'scoast.
First he wrecked his ship,something intentionally, and so
that wreck has been found, andso there's a couple of different
sites where you can go and seesome of the things that have
been recovered from the ship.
There's a great maritime museumin Carterette County.
There's also East CarolinaUniversity in Greenville.
(15:22):
They have the lab where they'rerestoring a lot of the
artifacts.
So there's a couple places youcan go see that thing, or you
can go out to the area whereBlackbeard was actually killed.
So what happened was he went upto Oak Creek, Oak Island and he
basically was hanging out o OakIsland when the English sent
some military troops down.
There was this big sea battleright off the coast of Ocracoke
(15:46):
Island, in the shallow waters.
Lea Lane (15:47):
When was this?
Wit Tuttle (15:48):
This was in 1715, I think in the early 1700s, so we
had just celebrated the 300thanniversary.
But every year Ocracoke Islanddoes a pirate festival where
they reenact Blackbeard's lastdays, and there's a place called
Springer's Point where you cango.
That's actually the site wherethis battle happened and where
Blackbeard was killed, and whenthey killed him they cut off his
(16:11):
head and brought the head backto Virginia, but they left his
body there, so you can go to theexact spot where Blackbeard's
body is still floating around,probably haunting people.
It's a great spot.
Okra coke itself a reallyspecial place.
It's only accessible by ferryand it's one of the really true
places where you can still getout there and have a wonderful
(16:33):
experience on the coast.
Lea Lane (16:34):
Fabulous.
Well, the name of the podcastis Places I Remember.
So, Wit, please would you giveus a personal memory of yours
about North Carolina.
Wit Tuttle (16:43):
OK, so one of my favorite memories is got to be
eating barbecue at LexingtonBarbecue, because what I think
is fantastic about this place is, if you go to a barbecue joint
and I'll talk about myexperience at Lexington Barbecue
, but it's really any barbecuejoint across the state and there
are hundreds of them it's oneof the places where people
(17:04):
really mix and integrate more sothan ever.
You'll see Black people, you'llsee White people, you'll see
Hispanic people, you'll see richpeople, you'll see poor people,
you'll see everybody gettingalong, sitting together, eating
together, and I just thinkthat's a wonderful experience
that we all need throughout thiscountry, and barbecue
(17:25):
restaurants are one of theplaces you'll really see that,
where everybody sits, everybodytalks and we all realize how
much we have in common ratherthan how much is pulling us
apart.
So that's my favoriteexperience about North Carolina
is just going to a barbecuejoint, hanging out and watching
people get along.
Lea Lane (17:41):
Wow, that's the solution, I hope, to what ails
us --having a rib or pulled pork.
Wit Tuttle (17:48):
Barbecue exactly.
Barbecue saved the world.
Lea Lane (17:51):
Oh boy.
Well, thank you, Wi .
l head a Visit t North Carolinafor your expertise and your
memories.
You have a beautiful state.
It's so interesting.
I hope everybody listens andgoes.
There's so much to do and see.
Thank you.
Wit Tuttle (18:04):
Thanks a lot.
Thanks for having me.
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