Flat Rock, North Carolina

An Educational Trip for Students in ENG 467: America’s Literary Journalists

March 23, 2002 General Accommodations Itinerary Transportation Sponsor Mark Canada UNC-Pembroke canada@uncp.edu Updated March 19, 2002 © Canada, 2002

Introduction As Walt Whitman reminded us in “Song of Myself,” there is much to be learned outside the classroom. In that spirit, I am planning a field trip to Carl Sandburg’s home in Flat Rock, North Carolina, for this seminar on America’s literary journalists. Sandburg worked as a journalist in Chicago before becoming one of America’s most famous poets. Eventually, to our great benefit, he and his wife moved to Flat Rock, North Carolina, where we now have easy access to their home and farm.  I visited their home a couple of years ago and found it a beautiful and interesting place. I really hope that many or all of you can join my family and me on this trip. In fact, I invite you to bring along a friend, a spouse, or your whole family. The following students have signed up for the trip: Robert Bean, Mike Hemminger, Crystal Craven, Mary Harrington, and Erin Murner. I have decided to let each of you make your own hotel arrangements. The phone number of the hotel where my family and I will be staying appears under “Accommodations” below. Finally, in case you are wondering, I have organized a number of educational trips like this one for other students. Over the past couple of summers, I have taken students to Philadelphia, and Boston, and this summer we will be going to Williamsburg. In fact, travel is one of my favorite ways to learn. I hope you agree!

Transportation

Driving Time Approximately 5 hours, 30 minutes from Pembroke to Flat Rock

Because we are starting from different places, we will meet in the parking lot of Richmond Community College in Hamlet at 9 a.m. on Saturday. Just look for my family’s gray van. We will try to park someplace where we will be visible from the road. Richmond Community College is located on I-74 in Hamlet. If you are traveling west, it will be on your right.

Accommodations

Hendersonville Hotels Briarwood Motel, (828) 692-8284, $40-55 Comfort Inn, (828) 693-8800, $50-60 Days Inn, (828) 697-5999, $38-52 Quality Inn, 201 Sugarloaf Road, (828) 692-7231, $75

Because of the driving time, my family and I plan to spend the night at a hotel in Hendersonville, which is near Flat Rock. If you don’t mind sharing a room with a fellow student, you can expect to pay about $37 for one night’s stay at this hotel. You also may choose to stay somewhere else. I have included information about several hotels in the box at the left.

Itinerary

Saturday, March 23 9 a.m.: Meet at RCC in Hamlet 11 a.m.: Lunch in Charlotte 2 p.m.: Sandburg home 6 p.m.: Dinner near Flat Rock Sunday, March 24 9 a.m.: Recreation Noon: Lunch 5 or 6 p.m.: Arrive home

After meeting at Richmond Community College at 9 a.m. on Saturday, we will drive as a caravan to Charlotte, where we will stop for lunch around 11 a.m., probably at an Olive Garden. Around noon, we will leave and drive the remaining two hours or so to Flat Rock. In Flat Rock, we will stop at Connemara, the home where Carl Sandburg and his wife lived from 1945 to 1967. We will see, among other things, the room where he wrote, the goat farm that his award-winning wife managed, the woods where he took walks, and the scenic vistas he enjoyed from their land. On display here are some of the 10,000 books the Sandburgs owned, along with Carl’s notes. I have visited the homes of a number of writers—Harriet Beecher Stowe, Edgar Allan Poe, Thomas Wolfe, Gene Stratton Porter—and this is one of the most beautiful and interesting I have seen. I suspect that you will enjoy your visit even more if you read a few things by and about Sandburg before you go. You might start with an excellent Web page that one of my students created last summer. The author of this page, Sherry Lofton, also located some of Sandburg’s works on the Internet: "Mill-Doors"; "Jaws"; "The Four Brothers"; and Haywood of The I.W.W.. I realize that some of you need to drive back home on Saturday, but I hope some or all of you will be able to join my family for dinner after our visit to the Sandburg home. After breakfast at our hotel the next morning, I plan to take my family to one of the nearby parks for an hour or two. Again, I invite any or all of you to join us. We probably will get back on the road around noon and drive home, probably stopping for a quick lunch somewhere along the way and arriving home in the late afternoon or early evening.