My Summer Vacation To North Carolina-Part 1

Last fall I wrote about an adventure I had with my oldest daughter. We went to IKEA and on the way home we stopped in Wauwatosa, WI to see one of the Thomas Dambo trolls. We saw Mama Rosa and really enjoyed her. https://www.thecabincountess.com/2025/08/a-visit-to-ikea-and-mama-rosa.html 

I mentioned in that blog that I would really like to see more. Before I knew it, I got a package in the mail. It was a large hardcover book about Thomas Dambo and a history of his first 100 projects. It was exciting to read about but not as exciting as to see what came next. 

 

My youngest daughter doesn't let any moss grow under her feet. She was planning a trip for the two of us. In researching the trolls she found a whole family of them in North Carolina. What made it even better was that one of the trolls was named DUX. That is my maiden name. It was done, we were going to North Carolina.

We decided to go as soon as my daughter could get time off in the summer. That happened last week. Fortunately there is a direct flight from Appleton, WI to Charlotte, NC. The flight is only 2 hours long. The flight was around noon so we arrived about 3:00 Eastern time. We rented a car. The first troll was only a few miles from the airport so we went there before we did anything else. His name is Big Pete.

 

It is hard to see how large he really is. His big feet alone are about 7 feet long. All the trolls in North Carolina have a necklace or a symbol nearby that you have to keep track of. After you see all of them, you put the symbols in a website and that leads you to a final treasure. It is called The Grandmother's Tree. The trolls alone are a treasure but this adds a little fun game to the process.

After we saw Big Pete we found our hotel and ate. We had a big adventure ahead of us.

The next day we headed for High Point, North Carolina. High Point had a girl named Little Sally. She was located next to a deserted brick factory and was surrounded by woods. It was a wonderful setting right in the middle of town.

High Point NC was a very interesting place. It looked industrial, yet modern. There were a lot of buildings with names which we didn't recognize. Then we happened on this large chest of drawers. Apparently High Point is known for being the furniture capital of the world. It is the headquarters for many furniture companies. It also has a very fancy prestigious university. 

As we continued on our way we stopped at a couple attractions, but I will show you them in part 2 of this blog. Right now we have to get to Dix Park in Raleigh, NC. The park was named after Dorothea Dix. It's buildings and land were part of North Carolina's first state psychiatric hospital. Dix Park has a history of its own separate from having the Dambo trolls living there. Dorthea Dix was an educator and social reformer. She was an important woman who changed how mentally ill people were treated. There is a lot of information about her online. 

This park is where the rest of the family is located. The family consists of Daddy Bird Eye,  He is sitting alone in park. He is watching over the forest and protecting his family. He has really big ears so he can hear if danger is coming. The trolls don't fully trust humans so they are hidden throughout the park.

The trolls were in three separate locations in the park. It was very hot and humid in North Carolina so we drove from site to site. It could easily be walked and my daughter would have done that if I hadn't been along. Next was Mother Strong Tail. She had a very long tail that was 645 feet long. She was resting but at the end of her tail was her baby named Dix.

Daddy and Mother have two more children in the park. They are Dax and Dux. They are twins. They are playing hide and seek. Dux has his eyes covered and he's counting. He was the reason we came.

 

 

 

   

They were all unique and amazing but now we had to decipher the codes. After putting in each symbol we were given a vague idea of where The Grandmother Tree was. It wasn't as straight forward as we thought it would be. I am a bit of a quitter, but not my daughter. She is like a dog with a bone and will not give up for anything. We discovered the final "Tree" was over 10 miles away.  It was in a Nature Preserve. We drove there and started walking and walking and walking. Finally we knew we were in the right area but couldn't find the tree. We thought a Grandmother Tree would be a huge stately and solid tree. It was not. There are rules to not publish the exact spot and pictures, but I will say it was not as it seemed. Thank goodness my daughter is persistent. 

We arrived in North Carolina on a Tuesday afternoon. By Wednesday afternoon we had accomplished our mission. In part 2 of this blog, I will show you where else we went and what we saw.