Day 11: Raleigh & Carry NC, Drive to New Port News, Virginia.

We were early to the Billy Graham library but asked the guard a permission to see it from outside and take a couple of pictures. He reluctantly agreed and that’s all we wanted to do really.

 Two and a half hours drive East , we arrived at Raleigh, the capital city of North Carolina. Raleigh is known as the "City of Oaks" for it’s a numerous oak tree lined throughout the downtown. We checked out the liberty bell replica in Bicentennial Mall and parked in a lot near the mall itself.

Walking to the downtown was slow because of the Oak trees and Tara wanted to pick as many acorns as possible. Nuts, squirrels and fall colors and the small churches and museums, all made our walk quite interesting. We also stopped at the Moor Park Square to see the Big Acorn and Tara was very fascinated.
 

Lunch was at a well-reviewed down-home south joint, Big Ed’s City Market. Salty country ham and collard greens, grits and a sirloin tip open face sandwich with gravy provided an original southern filling and even the sweet ice tea worth a mention. We drove around the University of North Carolina campus and then carried on to Cary, the world headquarters of SAS Institute.


My relationship with SAS is emotional and it goes beyond analytical capabilities of SAS System. I heard about it first in 1997 when I was a student in IIT Bombay. Geology students used it for GIS and statistical applications and I was fascinated with statistical modeling ever since I met Dr. Sham Bhat, a professor in Pondicherry University who taught us mathematical applications in economics. A friend of mine in mathematics department helped me in installing SAS in my PC then and ever since I started experimenting with programming capabilities of the SAS system. My M.Phil. Thesis was on stock market modeling developed using SAS system. SAS Institute in Bombay did offer a job when I graduated but I joined another financial technologies company because a finance job sounded more interesting then.

Two years later I quit the Financial Technologies and joined GE Analytics Center of Excellence in Bangalore where everyone was using SAS system all the time. I surely had an edge because I knew SAS from campus so I eventually become a trainer for new hires and also helped in certifications. So I have seen Cary in SAS screens and all SAS advertisements so wanted to see their headquarters were I hear lot of product development and research were done. A couple of people I knew were working in the building but we did not want to bother them in the middle of the work.

To our surprise the Cary campus was gated and the security stopped us to see the badge. I told him we just wanted to see campus but we were told permission was required in advance. I regretted not contacting my friends but we could still get a glimpse of the place and also took some pictures outside. And moreover, we were eager to hit Hwy 95, just about 50 miles from Carry, and then we would be driving formally in main highway of the East Coast.

Highway 95 begins from Florida and goes all the way to Maine, runs parallel to Atlantic. When new to the US in 2004 and living close to I95 in Connecticut, this one took us to places in the weekends. Those days we woke up on a Saturday nothing to do and simply drove the GE leased brand new car to Edison NJ, Baltimore MD , Richmond, Virginia and New Port News, VA sometimes clocking a 1,000 miles in just one weekend. Still learning to keep-up with the speed and road signs, we felt easy to stay in one road so I95 was the one. We also went north to New England states especially during the fall times. So now I can safely pretend that I know the places and familiar with all of I 95 stretch though the fact is that we rarely stopped our car to enjoy anything on our way then.

Our destination town, New Port Beach, VA was about 210 miles from Cary. When Tara woke up, we were already in Suffolk. At Portsmouth, we entered the downtown tunnel (Southern branch of Elizabeth River) then took Midtown tunnel (Norfolk –Portsmouth tunnel, Northern branch of Elizabeth River). About two miles in total length, the tunnel helped Tara to wake up cheerful and she was alert. Always fascinated with tunnels (invokes her Thomas Train memories) this was the longest tunnel she had ever been to until now. Sheena’s aunt was surprised when we reached on time for dinner at their home in Virginia Beach. After a quick chat we went to an Asian seafood buffet and had an extended hour dinner munching all kinds of Chinese food.. We also planned the historic places to visit next day in Virginia. Sheena’s uncle is a biker and a history enthusiastic so he had lot of tips for us.