Labile Weather and a Little More of Raleigh.

Okay, so yesterday it was nice and sunny, 80 degree weather, then over night a terrible storm came through Raleigh.  The weather forecast yesterday said it was supposed to rain and maybe some possible thunderstorms.  Well, there were no thunderstorms, but it was just as scary.  At about 3:30am I woke up and thought, "Hmm, It hasn't started raining yet and the weather report said it was supposed to be raining right now."  Mind you, it was really windy, that's what woke me up.  The van felt like it was getting tossed a bit.  I looked up the latest weather report on my phone and then my heart just sank....a warning was issued to seek shelter in a large well supported structure immediately and stay to away from windows for a tornado and hail warning with possible hail from the size of a penny all the way up to the size of a golf ball!  OMG!!  I woke Alex up and a told him about the warning and suggested we go inside the Walmart building(we were parked in the Walmart parking lot) until the storm passed.  On the weather doppler it looked like the storm was just on the edge of Raleigh.  It hadn't started raining yet,  but I did not want to be inside our van if hail the size of golf balls were going to be hitting us.  We quickly got dressed and got out of our van then started walking over to the Walmart building.  The moment we stepped out of our van the wind picked up and it started raining.  Seriously, I was really scared...What if it started hailing golf balls before we could get into the building?  Would I get knocked unconscious?  Would I get injured badly enough to meet my death?   My walking quickly turned into running.  I was probably freaking out more than I needed to and Alex told me I needed to calm down.  We safely got into the Walmart building and waited for the storm to pass.  I was more worried about the possible hail than the possible tornado and Alex was more worried about the tornado.  We stayed in Walmart for about an hour and a half.  I don't know if it hailed or not.  When the storm passed our van was fine.  There were no signs of hail damage and it was still sitting in the place we left it.  So, that was a little unexpected excitement.  I'm seriously not a big fan of the weather schizophrenia patterns on the East Coast.  It's far to labile for my taste.

In my last blog I was complaining about all the focused history in the South on the Civil War and slavery, well today I got to enjoy some North Carolina history that didn't focus so much on the Civil War at the North Carolina Museum of History.  Actually there wasn't one exhibit in the museum that involved the Civil War.  After the weather cleared up today, Alex and I visited the museum and walked around the Raleigh Historical district.  Raleigh is another one of those really old towns with beautiful big mansions. I love the old style architecture!

The Governor's Mansion. It was closed to the public the day we went.

The Leuitenent Governor's house.

This looked like a haunted house in person.

Loved it!

Many Old East Coast Mansions have this style

We only had two hours to tour the museum before it closed.  I really wish we had more time there because we didn't get to see everything.  The exhibit that stood out the most to me was the Child Labor Exposure exhibit.  From 1908 to 1918 a man with the last name Hine photographed and interviewed children who worked at Cotton mills all over the state of North Carolina.  His investigations and photos contributed largely on getting the public's attention to take a firm stand against child labor.  He had a really hard time actually getting permission to photograph and interview the children, so he would take pictures as they were going to and from work.  He would always ask how old they were and how much money they made.  Many of the children were from the ages 6-14 and worked up to 12 hour shifts getting paid 50-80 cents a day.  Some children didn't even know how old they were and sometimes parents would lie about the age of their children so that they could work.  At the time it was illegal for a child under the age of 13 to work, but there were no state inspectors enforcing the law at these establishments.  The child labor brought down the wages of the adult workers and whole families would have to work at these mills just to survive.  The conditions were horrible, stuffy and humid.  Many children would get respiratory illnesses and their growth stunted.  One boy photographed  was 12 years old and hadn't grown one inch in 5 years.  There were no allotted times for breaks and many times the children would go their entire shift of work with out food.  Hine's work was published all over the U.S. and helped expose and eradicate child labor.
Other exhibits at the museum included sports memorabilia, Native American customs, WWII weaponry, local old drug store artifacts, carpentry, the life of a freeman of color, and War artifacts from 1898 to 2005.  Oh, and I forgot to mention the museum was free!!!

This is a replica canoe that the Native Americans used on the river for hunting

It's Black Beard Pirate!