Dix Park and the Grandmother Tree

***Reader Beware: If you want to find the Grandmother Tree sans help, please skip this post. I won’t give it away, but you might learn more than you’d like. Proceed with caution!

Dorothea Dix Hospital began in 1856 as a psychiatric hospital. Dorothea advocated for mental health services, and the hospital named after her operated until 2012. In 2015, 308 acres were sold to the city of Raleigh. The vision for the purchase included creating a city park for all Raleigh residents. In the midst of this urban revival, many art installations began to pop up.

The city’s goal has been to turn this area into an urban oasis with gardens, trails, a dog park, and the Gipson Play Plaza (water area for kids). And, in October 2025 Dix Park saw the construction of five Dambo trolls: Mother Strong Tail, Daddy Bird Eye, Dix, Dax, and Dux.

Tracy’s sister and two nieces decided to experience the trolls with us, so we all jumped in a vehicle and headed toward Raleigh.

Daddy Bird Eye

The first troll we encountered was Daddy Bird Eye. He sat leaning on a tree and looked toward the downtown skyline. The steady flow of visitors continued to show wonder and awe. While many visitors knew about troll hunting, many had simply come to the park, saw people congregating near this fatherly figure, and decided to get an up-close look.

As a reminder, all the trolls at Dix Park, and the two in Charlotte and High Point combine to create a treasure map of sorts. By using the symbols on their necklaces, an avid explorer can enter the information into Dambo’s trollmap to find a general location of the Grandmother tree.

Dux

Even though the four remaining trolls were up a hill and on the other side of the old hospital buildings, we trekked up there. The walk was quite easy, and we came upon a game of hide and seek.

I’m pretty sure Dux didn’t have confidence in his ability to find his sibling, so he peeked just a bit as the countdown to “seek” began.

Dax

Dax took off running with the hope of winning the game. These two trolls hid within a tree-line, but were easily accessible. Nearby the park hung hammocks and provided picnic spots for visitors to use. Most of us did not take advantage of the park’s features but instead enjoyed Dambo’s game of hide and seek.

Dix

I’m assuming Dix was the youngest of the collection at Dix Park. Dix held on to something that wrapped around it and continued through the forest. We followed the tubelike structure, and it turned out to be Mother Strong Tail’s tail.

Mother Strong Tail

Half asleep after long hours of entertaining three young trolls, Mother Strong Tail took a nap in another part of the forest. She laid down with one eye open—just in case trouble brewed.

The day couldn’t have been more perfect. We embraced the weather, and Tracy and I reveled in sharing the fun of troll hunting with her nieces. One took over the code breaking and entered all the symbols in the Trollmap.

At first, we didn’t know how to enter the information into Dambo’s website, so here’s a quick explanation. On the Trollmap, you need to click on the X that would be around North Carolina. A scroll appears with the story of Grandmother, and if you enlarge the scroll, you’ll see where to enter the symbols. There’s no particular order, however, once you enter the correct symbols, the site will congratulate you. Street names will appear behind the tree.

I entered those street names, and Google provided a name of a trail system. We set off.

On a side note: Tracy’s sister had also heard of our quest to see the 1950s Liberty Bells (see posts on Augusta and Nashville). She offered for us to go see the North Carolina bell since we were in Raleigh.

We arrived downtown to construction everywhere, so parking was at a minimum. Instead, we jumped out and took off in the direction of the bell. As we arrived where the bell should have been, we saw nothing. A security guard was outside our building, so we asked. He told us that due to construction the bell had been taken off display to protect it. Bummer.

Tracy immediately called her sister who was driving until we finished finding the bell, and we headed back to the street. Up next: Grandmother Tree.

The Grandmother Tree

Finding the tree took a hike into some woods and responses from fellow hikers. We weren’t sure which trail to take, but it seemed they all looped around. We decided to go a particular direction but arrived at a crossroads. Which way should we go? I decided to turn right and go just a short distance to see if it might be that direction. The other four took the left. Soon, I saw two people walking. They asked if I was the other part of the “Caw Caw” group (That was our call sign if we found anything). Chuckling that they knew our sophisticated communication system, they said I should go back. The Grandmother Tree had been the other way.

Friends, if it had been spring or summer, I don’t think we would have found our target. We stayed left and turned left all the time, but the final part took you off the trail. With little foliage to block the view, we saw a pile of manmade objects and went to explore.

We found the site of The Grandmother Tree. Imagine our surprise when there wasn’t really a tree there. I’m not sure if it had been symbolically buried or not. We found the sign, shells strung around a stack of wood, and traveler’s gifts. The sign confirmed we were in the correct spot.

To be honest, it disappointed us. There was no troll nor an exquisite tree. However, we loved being together, and the gift of the outdoors was nice too. On our way back to the car we met a solo traveler looking for the hidden treasure. She didn’t mind us providing directions, so we did.

As for us, we were thankful for our adventure and headed back to Summerfield for the evening. Our day had been perfect.