Well the 6th of September finally arrived very much to Dave's disgust :-) it was finally his birthday, his 40th birthday ... wow is my man getting old, so many people have reminded me I am not far behind him so I better not tease him too much :-)
First, before I go on coz this is gonna be a long one, I want to thank all those that called, either got hold of us or left messages on our home phone or cell, emailed, sms'd ... I am sure he really felt special that you all remembered his big day !!!
Ok so we left as early as possible Thursday morning on our 4 odd hour drive to Wilmington, North Carolina. We have done a couple of the beaches in South Carolina which are actually closer to us than the North Carolina beaches but this time wanted to go somewhere different so off to Wilmington we went. We got there around 12h30 ish and went to quickly check into our hotel which was small but thankfully not too bad coz anyone that knows me knows that if the hotel isn't good, then we are off to a bad start.
Then we took a drive down the coast to Fort Fisher and now all my American friends are going to laugh at me, we were very excited to take the ferry from Fort Fisher over to Southport which is a good ferry ride. You see we had never driven our car on a ferry before so this was something different for us and was a nice 'boat' trip for Jade too, a fun start to our vacation.
Here are a few pics of the ferry ride ...
Now you going to really laugh when you see the pics below ... Jade was a little out of sorts Thursday, she had a bit of a runny nose and was just a little bit of a pain in the butt during all the driving we had to do so, after the ferry ride, I said to her it was a good idea to take a little nap considering it was going to be a long day and she agreed. Well for her birthday last year she got a nice warm blanket wrapped up in this poodle like pillow, she loves to sleep with the pillow and on nights when there is thunder and lightening she wraps the poodle around her head or ears to block out the sound and I often find her asleep that way so ... I was giving her a hard time about taking a nap and I guess that was sound she wanted to block out too and well the next thing we knew, she had fallen asleep in her carseat with the poodle around her head. I took a bunch of pics, I pasted two below, all I can say is she wasn't impressed that we laughed at the pics :-)
There wasn't much to do in Southport so we took a slow drive through there while Jade slept and then headed up the coast again, through Kure which is very pretty, it's a small area but you sure as day can see the money there ... then we drove through Carolina Beach and into Wrightsville Beach which I totally loved. Having said that, if you didn't feel old and fat when arriving at Wrightsville Beach, after that beach experience you certainly would !!!
We took a long walk as Dave will tell you, coz those that don't know Dave, Dave hates to walk ... and we took a really long walk along the beach to Johnnie Mercer Fishing Pier and then took a walk down the pier which was pretty neat coz it goes quiet far out into the ocean. There were a bunch of fisher men and women on the pier and Jade actually got to see one or two people catch a fish so she was thrilled, only now she wanted to fish too !!! What was cool for me is, I love to watch the surfers and at all the beaches we have been to in the States, we haven't seen many surfers but this beach was full of them and when you were on the pier you had a good view of them out there in the waves :-)
After the beach we went back to the hotel took a shower and then went out for a nice dinner at the Olive Garden which is one of Dave's favorite restaurants, I tried to get the staff to sing for him which I know he would have killed me for had they actually done it but they forgot :-( and well that was the end his his birthday, for that day anyway, I think he was lucky coz really he had a birthday weekend !!!
Now onto Friday which was a long, long day with tons of pics and tons to see so let's see how much I can put in here ...
Friday morning after breakfast we drove into historical Wilmington which is very similar to Charleston for those that have been there but somehow, I think I liked this more. We first did a bit of walking around, there were all these tiny little craft places and also many antique places, Karen I so needed you with me this weekend coz you know Dave he hates to walk so I felt like I needed to rush through everything since it was his birthday weekend and all. There was one shop we spent a bit of time in, Jade loved it, it was a Ladybug store and had all sorts of stuff from candy to wall hangings to soft toys, all looking like ladybugs :-)
Then we took a horse and carriage narrated tour, this was something I didn't have planned but Jade so wanted to go on the tour, I caved and we went on that too as well. I took so many pics of the beautiful houses obviously that won't mean much to you guys but I wanted just to put three of them in so you can get an idea of what some of the houses looked like there ...
Then it was onto the trolley ride, this was similar to the horse and carriage ride, only it was a longer ride, the other tour was a very slow tour of about 20 minutes, now I know that sounds strange but you are going at snail pace so 20 minutes felt like a long time ... ask Jade which was bored after the first 5 minutes. The trolley ride was about 45 minutes and showed us so much more and well that Jade enjoyed more, I don't think it was the ride though it was more about she knew after this ride we were going on the boat !!!
Now the boat was the Henrietta III, it was one of these large riverboats that you see in all the old movies, only it wasn't a paddleboat like you would expect it to be but it was great all the same. It was an 1 1/2 hour narrated tour but it pretty much went down the river one way and then came back up again. But the river was the famous Cape Fear River so that was cool, also we got to see the Battleship North Carolina from the water too which was cool coz that got us pretty close to it without us having to take the battleship tour itself. Then we pretty much got a history of the river, from the harbour section of it where we saw ships being loaded to the river front area where apparently the stars rent places and park their boats out front :-) All along the rivers edge there are stores and the cutest little restuarants, all pretty expensive but I guess their location pushes their prices up but still, it was very pretty there ... but we had pretty much all the tours we could take in one day :-)
Then it was off to Wrightsville Beach for the remainder of the day into the evening. It was an awesome afternoon for the beach and the beach was pretty crowed but nice. On the way to the beach we bought Jade a boogie board which we knew from previous trips to the beach she would have a ball on and so she did. The last trip to the beach she wore Dave out but this time she was old enough to try a lot on her own and well she blended in just fine amongst the other surfers on the beach (hehehe). I took another long walk on the beach and left the two of them playing in the waves that way we all had fun ... only the tide was really high so I didn't walk as far as I wanted to, it's times like this that I miss Tableview Beach and wish I stayed closer to the ocean :-(
After that it was back to the hotel for showers and then off to dinner and bedtime :-)
Well now looking at my pics all that I have left are more beach pics ... on Saturday we drove around to do some shopping but quickly came to the realization that Wilmington, other than the historical part of it, is not really a shopping destination !!! We landed up at their local mall which wasn't too bad, they actually had some stores we don't have in Charlotte so that was pretty interesting. After a morning of shopping, we decided to hit the beach early, this time we went to Carolina Beach which I really liked even more than Wrightsville Beach. Dave and Jade played nicely for a while when I went for my usual walk along the beach but then Dave, obviously the unenergitic dad that he is, tried to get her to play by herself rather, so I took her for a walk on the beach to collect shells for the kids in her class and her teachers, that gave him a well deserved break (hehehe), she and I enjoyed that.
As we walked down the beach I took some pics of some of the beachfront houses, very different to what we would see in SA but thought it would interest you to see what their beach houses looked like. I am actually surprised at how run down a lot of these prime beach front properties are but then I have no clue on what the upkeep of one of these would be all I know is I would love to have one !!! As I mentioned earlier the houses in Kure are way better maintained and are far prettier but then again, you can see the people there have money and well money buys a lot right ... but still these beach front properties are just to die for !!!
After the beach we went back to the hotel and Dave and Jade swam at the pool while I made us all lunch then we drove around again shopping and site seeing and then it was an early dinner and bedtime.
I seem to be having a problem with publishing Saturdays stuff so I am going to publish here and then try and make Saturday a new post ... hold thumbs !!!
