So this past weekend was the White Coat Ceremony for the first year medical students. Kris' mom came out for the festivities and a little visit with her favorite son and daughter-in-law. They had the ceremony on the Wake Forest campus which is not where the medical school is. They had a speaker and then they had them come up one by one and put a white coat on them. It was neat and inspiring. I'm so proud of Kris and all of his hard work so far. I know that there is still a long way to go but he is going to be a great physician in whatever direction he decides to go. The speaker was the dean of the medical school at Texas A & M and he was a former faculty member here in the 90's. He decided to wear a baseball cap instead of the regular cap for these types of ceremonies.
The ceremony was held in the Wait chapel on the regular Wake campus. It was pretty.
We spent that afternoon at the medical school and got a tour of the building where they spend all of there time. Then there were talks given by 2 professors and 2 upper classmen about the history of Wake Forest and the life of the student while here. It was a beautiful day and we had a good time.
The other part of the weekend was spent doing a little bit of birthday shopping, the county fair, traveling along a small portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and at Old Salem. The fair was pretty good. It sure seemed like there were lots of rides and game booths but we were able to find some of the other stuff we were interested in seeing and doing. I ate some roasted corn on the cob which was delicious, Kris had an ice cream cone, and Jean had a funnel cake which was also delectable.
We also made a stop at the demolition derby. It didn't compare to the ones I've been to in Fairview Utah but it sure was full of those people that come out of the woodworks when the fair comes to town;)
We saw a guy carving something in wood with his chain saw-it looked like the Karate Kid's teacher guy. I don't remember his name. We didn't stay long enough watching him to see what it really was going to be.
We also made a quick stop to watch the sheep dogs work with sheep
and some ducks.
Then we toured the education building with all the crafts, food, and photography that people entered. Hats off to all those who spend the time and make the effort to enter their stuff. Lastly we walked through the building that had all those people selling/promoting things. I only saw one thing that almost tempted me and it was a handbag, interesting. All in all we had a good time at the fair.
The Blue Ridge Parkway was pretty with the leaves just beginning to change. We didn't go really far on it but it did take us a good part of the day.
Many of the overlooks were overgrown with huge trees so there really wasn't much of a view.
We went for a small walk in the trees here. The color of the leaves on this tree was beautiful.
The mountain in the background is Grandfather Mountain. It is a place on our destination list but we didn't want to pay an entrance fee on Sunday for just a few minutes. Right now it is privately owned but the word on the street is that it will be bought by the state sometime in the future.
Finally we stopped at some waterfalls. This is just above where the water falls through the rock. It was gorgeous.
