Guus Bosman

Last week when we came back from Southpoint Mall with Joost and Ankie the odometer reached 20,000 miles.

We've had the car for a year.

This afternoon I went for a long walk in the Eno River State Park.

The park is very close to us, maybe a 15 minute drive. The river Eno floats north of Durham, and the banks of the river are a State Park for a number of miles. I've been in the park before, that was on the west side of the river.

Today was notably colder than it has been in the last months. I was still in my shorts and a T-shirt but I could feel that the fall is slowly starting.

I started at Cole Mill Road, but I noticed that the trails on that side of the river are pretty short. I started the trail and took a car bridge to the other side, and walked about 30 minutes outside the part to get to the trails on the other side that are longer. I encountered a guard dog there and I wasn't really looking forward to go back the same way.

When I was on this second trail I saw that in fact there is a crossing in the river and on my way back I used that crossing. With some athletic jumps I made it safe & dry to the other side. The trail runs mainly through woods and there's a variety of wild life in the park. I saw a tiny frog, but the nicest was a close encounter with four deer near the end of my hike.

On Sunday morning we left at 11.00 am for a road trip to Hanging Rock National Park. That's near Winston-Salem and the trip was supposed to take about two hours. It took a bit longer since someone wasn't giving me the right instructions, but we had a lot of fun in the car. It's a beautiful trip, especially the last part where we left the highway.

I didn't realize that the park is in Danbury, which is where I went tubing with the Jaycee's -- we passed the cafe where you can rent tubes.

It's a beautiful park. We took a moderate trail to the top of the Hanging Rock, from where we had a great view over the surroundings.

On Saturday morning Joost and Ankie arrived in Durham. They started their trip in New York a week ago, and traveled by car via Washington to North Carolina.

We had coffee the four of us, and then we went for a walk in downtown Durham, and did some shopping. Joost and Ankie took a lot of pictures -- architects have an interesting view of the world.

Later we went to Duke University, where we made a walk over campus. We also visited the Gothic Reading Room which has an exhibition on the history of Duke University.