Pride of North Carolina.

We had  breakfast this morning at Foster's Market where everything is fresh and authentic.  Sara Foster is the author of at least one cookbook, and used to work for Martha Stewart.

View of the counter where you order.
Cheese grits, which we split, sitting next to Lauren's veggie omelet.  

Front porch of Lauren's house in the woods.

View of her picnic table in front, but what I was really trying to get were her cowboy boots...

After breakfast, we drove to Durham to see the Duke University gardens.  Like the wildflower garden in Texas, extraordinary use is made of stone and brick.  This is one of two entrance gates to the gardens.

There are many rooms and almost as many allees.

Stone benches for reflection before passing through the pergola.

More stone.

Every garden should have a water lily pond.

Close up of inscription on back of stone bench shown below.  "Above all nations is humanity."

It seems appropriate to end with the bench and its inscription, given all the fear-mongering and anti-immigrant sentiment we have seen with the advent of the H1N1 virus.  Why is it that we always have to find someone to blame?

We had a quiet dinner at Panzanella, and then made our pilgrimage for  cough drops.    I'm so glad I came to see Lauren and what this  beautiful city offers.  She'll be back for a few weeks this summer, so it won't be long until I see her again.  She has me thinking about setting up a domain name to hold the blog and some other material as well.  That fits well with some other ideas I've had about my "brand."