Connemara

We continued north to Flat Rock, North Carolina, and Connemara, also known as the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site. The home and the surrounding property was purchased by the Pulitizer prize winning writer to accommodate his wife’s award winning goat dairy. When he died in 1967, she turned the house and grounds over to the park service, walking out with only a few personal items and her clothes.

At 9 am on the morning of the 7th, we walked up the steep trail to the house. The visitor center was in the basement of the house, and there we watched a interview of Sandburg by Edward R Murrow. 

After that we took what turned out to be a private tour of the house, and then walked out to the barn to see the goats. This was a hard Junior Ranger program for the kids, because in addition to answering some questions about the Sandburgs, they had to be artistic as well, creating a poem and guessing at the meanings of metaphors. It was pretty interesting, and we were there almost 3 hours.