The Distracted Wanderer

I recently had the opportunity to visit a city I'd never been to before when my cousin Amy asked me if I'd like to go to Raleigh, North Carolina with her for the International Bluegrass Music Association 's Annual Conference which had previously been held in Nashville but was making the switch to Raleigh for at least the next three years. Heck, as I'm always up for a trip someplace new I said 'sure' and so it was that we made the drive down along with Amy's sister-in-law Robin in search of bluegrass music and some of the local flavor. While Amy was attending to some conference business, Robin and I had the pleasure of spending some time talking to Ryan Smith of visitRaleigh who was kind enough to suggest a few local places that we might want to visit; she highly recommended that if we were looking for an "authentic Southern breakfast" that we be sure to visit Big Ed's City Market Restaurant as they were the best in town and not to be

UPDATE: In July of 2020, the Cranwell Resort & Spa reopened as Wyndhurst Manor & Club (the original name of its iconic manor) following its purchase by the Hyatt Corporation and its Miraval spa subsidiary for over $20 million in 2017. The photos contained in this post were taken before that purchase was made and some of the information - such as that on the spa - is no longer applicable. Long before Lenox, Massachusetts became the resort town and destination of tourists from all over the world that it is today, Catharine Sedgwick, one of America’s first important women writers, put pen to paper and declared it to be "a bare and ugly little village, dismally bleak and uncouth, reached only after six miles of steep and rough driving." Over time, though, her sentiments changed quite drastically and on November 1st, 1824 she wrote: "As I stand at the window and gaze on the hills that stretch before me in every variety of height and position, the sun sends hi