10 Year Wedding Anniversary Trip: Durham

In November 2017, Joe and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary! For years, we've talked about a big trip for our 10 year just the two of us, but it just wasn't in the cards this year. We are very grateful to live close to family and have already had the luxury of a few short trips just the two of us this year (Dominican Republic resort in February, Virginia Beach for a wedding in September) so we didn't feel it was the right timing to do a bigger trip. We did want to do something though, and Joe suggested we head back over to our former stomping grounds of Durham, NC for a fun weekend full of yummy food and drinks - it was perfect!

Downtown Durham was already on the up and up when we lived there, but it is definitely at a different level now - we love it! We stayed right downtown at the cool boutique Durham Hotel and walked everywhere - no rental car needed.  

Our trip started with a few missteps - our flight was delayed over 2 ours in Philly when some of the flight crew didn't show up. Once we finally made it down to Durham, we realized that we had both sets of car keys - one of which was to be left at home for my parents to use the Pilot to pick up the kids from school and use throughout the weekend. Thankfully, we have made some amazing friends through our daycare and one of them met my parents at the school with an extra set of carseats and helped them install them in their car. 

After all the stress settled down, we were ready for our first night of fun!

Our room at the Durham - very blue and denim ;) The whole hotel had a quirky mid-century vibe straight out of Mad Men.

First stop of the evening was just a short trip up the elevator to the roof-top bar! Unfortunately, it was record lows while we were visiting (yes, we had record highs for our PNW trip - we've really been hitting bad weather timing!). It was pretty much the same temps in NC as it was in PA, but the rooftop was tolerable with the heat lamps and the sunset views could not be beat. We loved it so much, we did the sunset again up there the 2nd night :)

Cheers to 10 years. 

The weather may be cold, but the sunsets were phenomenal!

Kidfree and happy!

We had pre-planned a lot of our eating as to maximize all the best food we could fit into our trip ;) A must when you're in NC is to have southern food/BBQ! Our first dinner was at The Pit in Durham. We had been to the original restaurant in Raleigh while living in NC, and this was super convenient and walkable from our hotel.

Fried Green Tomatoes - delicious!

Fried Okra, Fried Chicken, Brisket, Sweet Potato Fries, Baked Beans, Mac & Cheese, Pulled Pork.... yum!

After dinner we took about 10 steps next door to Fullsteam brewery, which opened right before we moved and a recent favorite in Durham.

Night cap!

The next morning was even colder, but we bundled up and walked over to Rise for breakfast sandwiches (even though our hotel had complimentary breakfast) because our #1 must when we are in the south is BISCUITS! Just like the South can never do bagels quite right, the North can never do biscuits either - we miss them in PA! Rise did not disappoint - it was one of our favorite meals of the trip - bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits are probably the best thing in the world to have after drinking the night before ;)

While we didn't pick up any Donuts, I had to snag a photo of the superhero themed ones for Nolan! He would have loved them! We happened to be in town during Comicon so these were special for that.

We hung out at the hotel after breakfast - when do we ever get to just lay around and relax?! It was too cold to walk around too much, but the relaxing was amazing.

When your hotel provides complimentary hooded robes, you must try them out! ;)

Another must during our trip was my go-to Duke spot - Cosmic Cantina! It brought back so many memories to come back here and the burritos were as good as I remember. We took an Uber over due to the weather, but ended up walking back to the hotel.

The infamous staircase to Cosmic

Exactly the same.

After all the food, it felt great to take a nice long walk from 9th street back through Bright Leaf and to the hotel. We stopped at the Duck Shop to pick up some presents for the kids, my parents, and my friend who helped us out with her car seats (who also happened to have gone to Duke as well!)

After we got back, we headed back up to our favorite spot on the roof for another sunset viewing. It didn't disappoint and was gorgeous for a 2nd night.

Love the reflection in the glass

Goofballs

Pre-dinner pics at the hotel

Ok, I apparently stopped taking photos after that! We headed over to Mateo for our only "fancy" dinner of the trip. It is a new restaurant very close to the hotel that opened since we've left NC and serves Tapas. It was good and easy with the proximity. After dinner, we walked over to a nearby bar (Bull City Burger & Brewery) to meet up with my friend Faryn for a few drinks. Faryn and I played hockey together at Penn State then overlapped in NC for a number of years before we moved back to PA. It was great to see her and hear all about the changes in the area since we've left. We walked over to a 2nd bar (Pour Taproom) in another boutique hotel (Unscripted) in Durham where you can pour your own beers using bracelet sensors that was pretty fun!

Our final day in Durham started with a much anticipated trip to Dame's Chicken and Waffles. Dame's opened while we still lived in Durham and was very high on my "to try list" but I never got there before we left! We couldn't wait to finally get a chance to go there and it was our favorite meal of the trip! SOOOOO good. We will certainly be back.

Joe's waffle - chicken breasts with blueberry schmear and almonds

Mine - chicken wings with blueberry waffles and apricot schmear

After such an indulgent/gluttonous trip, and a slightly warmer last day - we headed off to explore the rest of Durham by foot after breakfast. We walked down to American Tobacco area - which was pretty similar to how it was when we lived there. I love this area of Durham - they completely revitalized old tobacco warehouses into restaurants/office buildings/green space.

The water feature within American Tobacco

The Iconic Durham Shot - Lucky Strike smoke stack and water tower

We loved walking around all the sections of Durham. We popped into a few more stores to pick up some keepsakes and had one more beer at the new Clouds Brewing within Brightleaf before heading back to the airport. It was a really fantastic trip and way for us to reconnect and reflect back on our 10 years together.

When we arrived back, we were greeted by happy kids, a home-made cake by them and balloons/flowers. So very thankful for such amazing parents (and kids!)

They were in great hands with Nonna and Pop Pop!

That big fancy trip can wait (but it WILL happen!) - this was just what we needed and a trip to remember. Here's to many more decades of happiness! <3