Day 1- Monday, June 13, 2011

Today we drove to Raleigh, North Carolina- also known as the Tar Heel State. It took 5 hours to get here. It isn’t too far from Charleston because both North and South Carolina are in the southeastern region of the United States. It was the 12th state to become a state and that was in 1789. We stopped at Arby’s in Florence, SC on the way for lunch. We checked into our hotel around 3pm. We are on the third floor in room 326. Raleigh is the capital so we saw the state flag at our hotel. It was red, white and blue.

While we were driving today we saw the NC license plate which says “First in Flight”. That is because 2 brothers from Ohio, named Orville and Wilbur Wright, flew the first “controlled, sustained flights in a power-driven airplane” at Kitty Hawk, NC on December 17, 1903. They were airplane inventors and aviation pioneers who became interested in flying in the 1890s because of the German engineer Otto Lilienthal's glider flights. Both of the brothers were excellent mechanics and experimented with a lot of aircraft designs in their bicycle shop in Ohio. Orville designed the engine, which they then put together and attached to their improved glider. Then the first flight on December 17th was made by Orville and lasted only 12 seconds. Then the fourth flight was made by Wilbur and it lasted 59 seconds. Their airplane design was then approved by the army. Now we can fly for several hours over oceans to get to where we need to go. This was a huge part of history in the state of North Carolina. And even then, people from Ohio came to the Carolinas.

Tonight we went to dinner at The Mellow Mushroom- I LOVE PIZZA!! After dinner we came back to the hotel and got ready for bed. We have a big day tomorrow. I’m really glad to be here with my mom.