A Weekend Trip to Raleigh, North Carolina

Living in Williamsburg, Virginia has a lot of perks - but its "proximity" to a temple is NOT one of them. Kevin and I have both been spoiled by growing up in states with temples within close driving distance, so moving to Virginia has been somewhat trying in terms of how close we are to the temple. Sure, Washington, D.C. looks to be pretty close to Williamsburg on the map...but try driving it, going to the temple, and then driving back - it is a MISERABLE experience! For some reason, Virginia hasn't realized that the I-95 is a highly travelled road and might warrant more than, say, two or three lanes! Virginia has awful roads...but that is a rant for another post.

Kevin and I knew that it was about time we get our hinies to the temple, but we just couldn't bring ourselves to battling traffic for 3 hours each way...so we decided to make a fun weekend out of going to the temple and decided that we would rather drive 3.5 leasurely hours to the Raleigh temple than the 3 hours of white nuckle driving to the Washington DC temple.

Kevin planned the entire trip by himself and had a couple of surprises along the way. We drove down Saturday morning and stopped for lunch at Panda Express - conveniently located just a mile from the temple! As a side note, Kevin and I just love Panda Express, but the closest one to us is about an hour way, so whenever we go home to Utah or California we engorge ourselves in Panda just to quench our thirst for orange chicken!

The Raleigh temple is one of the smaller, cuter ones and it was a beautiful day, so we snapped some pictures for all of you to enjoy!







After the temple, we checked into our hotel room and took a much needed nap (doesn't it always seem like you need a nap after?). We took a wonderful nap and then got ready for dinner - Kevin had made reservations at Sullivan's Steakhouse and so we drove into the downtown part of Raleigh and ate dinner at a very delicious (very expensive!) restaurant - they had VERY good food!

The next morning we slept in and then drove home, but we stopped for lunch at the most amazing place - Logan's Roadhouse. If you have ever been there you would know why they are so amazing. The food is mediocre at best, but the serve fresh and hot buttery rolls that are to DIE for - if you ever see one, stop and enjoy a hot roll!

Anyway, I am just so glad we could get away for the weekend. With my work, we couldn't take a vacation for spring break, so I am glad we could get out of town - if even for a night!