We have now been staying with Cam (along with his house mates Nick and Gienia) for ten days and recuperating (!) from over seven weeks of intensive travel. It is surprising how much it takes it out of you. Durham is very pleasant at this time of the year. The daily temperatures have reduced to between 28-32 degrees and the humidity is less so the days much more pleasant. You can actually go out and explore without ending up exhausted from the heat and constantly in need of a shower. Durham is a city of about 250,000 and part of the wider Triangle of Durham, Chapel Hill and Raleigh which basically merge with each other. The total population of these three cities is over two million. Durham is a university city with three universities - Duke (where Cam studied in 2010), University of North Carolina and also North Carolina Central University. Classes commenced this past week and as Duke alone has around 14,000 students there has been a huge influx into the city. Children returned to school also so the yellow school buses have come out of storage and are regular vehicles on the roads, even in the city. We have had a great week relaxing and exploring while Cam has been at work. We have revisited places we went too back in 2010 and also others. We have had the car serviced ready for the next adventure and the caravan has also been serviced and had a general clean up. We will be ready to commence stage two in a few days. Durham's history lies mainly with the tobacco industry and much wealth was generated. Mid week we visited the original Duke Homestead. This was the family home and farm of the Duke family and it was here that their first tobacco factory was located. From here they relocated to the centre of Durham and continued to build their empire which culminated in a 40 million endowment in 1924 being set up to build Trinity College which was later renamed Duke University. Duke remains a private university today. Can you imagine a university or similar today receiving a gift of the inflated 40 million? They certainly made profit from tobacco and other investments the family had yet from the museum it was interesting to learn how well the employees were paid and considered their conditions to be excellent. A work day of 7 am to 3 pm with a half hour lunch break and earning double that of employees in the nearby cotton factories would have been a great step up for employees in the American Tobacco Company factories. We revisited the Sarah Duke Gardens and enjoyed wandering some of the 55 acres in a much more pleasant temperature. As we left I picked up a brochure on the gardens and read that they offer a trolley tour of the gardens so we booked for that. This was so worthwhile - just us and a volunteer tour guide feeling like royalty riding the golf cart around the gardens for a couple of hours and having the seasonal plantings explained (in language we could understand and certainly not too technical). I totally recommend this to other visitors. We had visited Stagville when we were here in 2010 but felt a revisit was worthwhile. This was the home and plantation of a wealthy local who had 900 slaves working in the property. We were lucky enough to time our visit for a guided tour (one of the advantages of touring mid week as no bookings required) and two hours later we felt we had learnt so much history of the area, the life of the plantation owners and also the slaves. The baseball season continues so we joined the crowds to the Bulls Stadium for another game this time between the Durham Bulls and Columbus with the Bulls taking the game. The warm evenings make sitting outside so nice and the atmosphere at the stadium is quite electric especially when the Bulls hit a home run, but deathly quiet when the opponents do likewise. The local farmers market is the place for all foodie people to go on Sunday mornings. The range of fruit and vegetables available, many of them completely foreign to us, was wonderful yet much more expensive than the supermarkets. Of course many of the products are organically grown so worth paying the extra. Like many cities, food trucks have become very popular. These seem to turn up in various places and provide a wide variety of good quality foods at reasonable prices - in a separate section of the market there were at least six lined up serving queues of customers. We have also seen the food trucks in a city park adjacent to a pub we were eating at (option there to buy your food from the food truck, curry this time, and drinks from the pub) and also lined up outside a series of outdoor bars in another area of town and proving very popular. In between times we have visited a number of the local eateries as after all Durham is a foodie town and there are numerous choices and we have been to a good variety. It has been great to share these times with Cam and be able to meet up with some of his friends. Sunday saw us at the Washington Duke Golf Club and Inn for brunch - such a beautiful environment to enjoy brunch out on the deck. After such a lovely brunch there was time for Peter and Cam to chainsaw and pack some wood ready for the fire pit as September 1 heralds the first day of fall and the cooler days ahead. The leaves are beginning to fall and as the house is in a forested area there are plenty of leaves and it is a daily task to sweep the decks and front bridge - as tempting as it is to just sweep these on to the ground snakes are known to habitat the area so don't need any encourage with additional hiding spots. We have noticed that there doesn't appear to be as many squirrels playing in the trees than there were in June when we were here - we watch for them as they climb the tree trunks and scurry across the ground as they look so cute. It will all be different again when we return to Durham again in about six weeks and we may also see some of the fall colours for which the Smoky Mountains are so famous. Sadly we will not see New England in fall, which it is also famous for, as that is just too far north for us to travel too again. Tonight is grill night - every Sunday Cam along with Nick and Gienia share dinner together and during the warmer weather this means using the grill (aka BBQ). We have enjoyed some lovely evenings together and tonight will be no different. Tomorrow we hit the road again!