Local area

The largest Indoor Furniture Outlet open to the public. The mart is a unique mix of nearly 100 furniture outlet stores, shops and galleries. Within this four story complex, you’ll find home furnishings, accessories, lighting, art, fine rugs, fabrics and much more, all with discounts off retail. Over 500,000 visitors travel to the Mart every year to visit some of the best discounted furniture showrooms in NC.

Charlotte Motor Speedway (formerly Lowe's Motor Speedway) is located in Concord, North Carolina, north of Charlotte. It features a 1.5-mile long quad-oval track seating 115,000 people, with room for 50,000 more in the infield. Constructed in 1959, it was the first speedway to host nighttime superspeedway racing and now offers year-round residences with 52 condominiums. The speedway is considered the home base of NASCAR with 90% of NASCAR teams being based within 50 miles.

Built in 1951 as a half mile dirt track, Hickory Motor Speedway is a short track located in Hickory, North Carolina. It is one of stock car racing's most storied venues, and is often referred to as "The World's Most Famous Short Track" and the "Birthplace of the NASCAR Stars". Some of the track champions in the 1950’s were Junior Johnson, Ned Jarrett, and Ralph Earnhardt Hickory is used as a venue for NASCAR's club racing division. Hickory Motor Speedway is short track racing at its best!

Hollywood big wigs thought the run down village would serve as the perfect setting for the post-apocalyptic dystopia District 12 featured in the film The Hunger Games. The town was featured in several scenes, and briefly thereafter was descended upon by tourists and thrill-seekers, running tours, trails and sightseeing trips hoping to capitalize on the story’s monumental popularity. www.henryrivermillvillage.com

Plan a visit to Catawba Science Center, a 35,000 sq. ft. science technology children’s museum offering hands-on exhibits, salt and freshwater aquarium galleries, and a state-of-the-art digital planetarium theater. Learn about exotic fish, turtles, snakes and other species found in the Amazon River Basin, touch live sharks and stingrays, and stay for a shark feeding. Enter the Germ Zone to learn about disease-causing bacteria, explore the surface of Mars with a robot arm, create and launch rocket

Rock Barn Country Club & Spa is a community in the rolling foothills of western North Carolina, offering two championship golf courses, a full service day spa, three dining venues, corporate event and wedding venues, and more. www.rockbarn.com

Lenoir–Rhyne University enrolled 2,523 students (2017–18) of which over 813 are graduate students and of which approximately 14% of whom are minorities. 88.3% of faculty hold terminal or doctoral degrees. The student-faculty ratio at Lenoir–Rhyne University is 12:1, and the school has 71 percent of its classes with fewer than 20 students. The most popular majors at Lenoir–Rhyne University include: Business, management, marketing, and related support services; Education; Health professions.