Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Up with U.S. Geography: North Carolina

State Name:
North Carolina

Capital:
Raleigh

Date of Entry:
November 21, 1789

Maps:

Map of USA. North Carolina outlined in dark ink,
shaded & with name written on it.

A close-up of North Carolina & its neighbors.

Neighbors:
Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee

Water Borders:
Pamlico Sound, Atlantic Ocean

Total Area:
53,819 square miles

Five Largest Cities:
Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro, Durham, Winston-Salem

Famous Geographical Point:
Cape Fear

State Nickname:
The Tar Heel State. Origin unclear, although it's widely assumed that the nickname comes from North Carolina's long history as a producer of naval supplies, which include tar.

Famous Person:
Andy Griffith, actor, producer, writer & gospel singer

Book Set In/About:**
Here We Are in Paradise by Tony Earley

A collection of short stories about life in North Carolina in the 20th century.

Movie Set In/About:
"Bull Durham" (1988), directed by Ron Shelton

A romantic comedy about a minor league baseball team in Durham, North Carolina. I love this movie. I've always felt that Kevin Costner gives his finest performances in movies about baseball.

Headline of the Day:
"Evacuations Ordered: Could Hurricane Matthew Impact North Carolina?" on abc11.com.

Would be interesting to revisit in a week to see if it did, in fact, impact North Carolina.

**Holy crap, Nicholas Sparks is prolific and all his books are set in North Carolina. Sorry, fans, none of his stories are going to darken my blog.

2 comments:

Patricia said...

Oh Nicholas Sparks! I've never actually read any of his books, but boy have I seen a goodly number of the movie adaptations.

I've been to North Carolina. Once, for a wedding. I was interested in the red soil, which got all over my shoes when we tried to walk to downtown in the small town in which we were staying. We passed four car dealerships (I think they are trying to tell us something, Matt commented) and discovered downtown to be dead. Then we walked back and ate at a restaurant in a strip mall.

balyien said...

The only Sparks book I read was non-fiction (a memoir of sorts) and it was quite good, but I doubt I'll ever read his fiction. I've seen a movie adaptation or two and found them pretty universally terrible.

I've never been to NC! I didn't know that about the red soil. Very interesting!