You know you are NOT in Arizona when...

You carry your fishing rods on your front bumper...

There's a pelican watching you eat your seafood lunch...

You can compare your size with the skull bone of a whale...

You look out the motorhome window and there's a ferry passing you...

Last days on mainland NC

We took the coastal route to the ferry at Cedar Island and took our time getting there...

Great bike ride at dusk through a big salt marsh at Cedar Point Campground

Loved this Forest Service campground with big yards, friendly neighbors who play Corn-hole and invited us to a big pot luck Chicken Marsala dinner.

Fishing pier at Emerald Isle

Beaches here are so BEAUTIFUL!  Clean white sand, turquoise water.






Some reasons we are loving Wilmington, NC ...

On the way to Wilmington we passed roads named Green Swamp Rd and Back Swamp Rd and Cabinet Shop Rd and a town named Old Hundred.  How can you not love such a state already?


Carolina Beach

That's the swimsuit I would like to wear...neon orange!

Trolley tours (we've now been on 7 - Eureka Springs & Little Rock in AR, Memphis & Chattanooga in TN, Asheville, Wilmington and New Bern in NC - in the past month).  We love them!

Boat tours (our 4th this month - Loch Lomond & Beaver Lake in AR, Tennessee River in Chattanooga & Cape Fear River in NC)  That is old downtown Wilmington in this picture.

Shopping!  Oh, Gregg LOVES it!  (He walked right by that sign & didn't even chuckle...)

Crab cake lunch along the International Waterway - mostly crab, not mostly bread crumb.  Yummm!  Fresh mahi mahi for Gregg.

Great performance of the musical Legally Blonde at the Thalian Theater, operating continuously since 1855.

Incredible tour of the USS North Carolina Battleship

The amphibian on board that Gregg wishes he could fly...

We got to go into the gun turrets.  Fascinating - claustrophobic.  I walked onto the ship thinking I could have enjoyed doing service at sea myself.  I changed my mind during the tour...what hard work and close quarters!

Beds over the desks in some of the quarters.  No space wasted...

HUGE anchor.  There is a tiny white speck above the right side of it that is Gregg's shirt in the background.  The ship is VAST.  About 2,300 personnel were aboard when at war in WWII in the Pacific.

Now, on to New Bern, NC, about 80 miles N of Wilmington.  The 2nd oldest community in NC, begun in 1710.  This building is the stable and carriage house of the first NC governor's palace, Tryon Palace.  This building survived a 1798 fire that destroyed the rest of the complex.  About 80% of its bricks are still the originals from 1700's.  Amazingly, the rest of the complex was rebuilt and refurnished with authentic 1700's artifacts in the 1950's at a cost of about $3.5 million.  The tour of the area is incredibly interesting.  

Formal gardens at Tryon Palace

My camera couldn't capture it, but at the end of this long arbor is a view of the Trent River - gorgeous.

Trolley tour in town taught us a lot.  That is a walkway for chimney sweeps - not a Widow's Walk as most would think.

Cemetery is interesting with grave stones old enough that the 6 pointed star was still in use within the Christian cross, rather unusual.

Grand Union flag on one of the houses - the first national flag of the US in 1760's.

New Bern is where pharmacist "Brad" Bradham invented Pepsi Cola.  It's also the hometown of author Nicholas Sparks.  Small community of about 28,000 with interesting old downtown street of shopping and restaurants, rivers, history - loved it there!

Maria and I went to dinner one night.  The necklace I am wearing is one that she gave me, made by her daughter Perla who is an artist that works with woven glass.  It's gorgeous!  See her work at http://www.site.perlasegovia.com/

One week later...

Battleship USS North Carolina across the Cape Fear River from downtown historic Wilmington, NC

It's a week now since our arrival in Wilmington, NC and we are still here...

Not our usual way of traveling!  But we have a malfunctioning refrigerator that is not responding well to attempted repairs.  A problem?  Not really -

* our RV repair center here is great!  Friendly and easy to work with, and free shady parking with hook-ups, handy to town and to beaches.

* Lots to do here in Wilmington - great restaurants, seafood, historical things to explore, nice weather, friends to see nearby.

* Tickets to a musical tonight - Legally Blonde - in a beautiful theater first built in 1855, with major recent restoration.

* Incredible self-guided tour of the restored battleship USS North Carolina.  Amazing...

We are not minding staying awhile! 

Wilmington, NC

We have become so good at winding down when traveling, went right into the groove this trip out and have been poking along, getting to the East Coast 30 days later.  2,501 miles from our driveway, we are in Wilmington, NC. 

Celebrated the first night here with a fantastic dinner with a fantastic view at Oceanic Restaurant at Wrightsville Beach.

One reason for our being here - visiting our Peruvian family.  Maria was an exchange student from Peru in 1966, living for 2 months with Sally's family.  They are now NC residents and SO gracious and interesting.  We have loved spending time with them.

Click for

Pictures of Maria and Augusto's family and home 

Some Wal*Mart stories...

We love staying in Walmart parking lots when we are traveling through an area quickly.  Safe, secure, easy parking, easy replenishing supplies and best of all free of course.  We often hang around in the morning when the air is cool before taking off driving again.
But last week we had 2 entirely new experiences at Walmarts.

Chattanooga, TN - I'm lying on the sofa reading and hear a vehicle pull up and honk by the door.  I get up and stick my head out the door and a man says "Oh, sorry, I was hoping to speak to your husband."  I get Gregg who's been lying on the bed reading and he goes out to talk to the guy.  He tells a story of woe and asks for money to fix his truck!  A panhandler who drives up and asks for money!  That's a first for us...  Actually, we saw a lot of panhandling in downtown Chattanooga as well.  Very polite, just asking for handouts... 

 Sylva, NC - Tiny town but very, very nice Walmart parking lot with beautiful mountain views.  Shortly after we parked on the Sunday night before Memorial Day, the parking spaces directly in front of us started filling with cars, trucks and young people, mostly teenagers.  Gregg went out to talk with them and they told him that is where they "hang out" in Sylva, nowhere else to go.  2 police cars pulled up at one point and talked to the kids and Gregg.  Gregg told the cop he was chaperoning them and was told he wasn't doing a very good job of it!  But they were nice kids the police seemed to know and left alone there.  The kids forewarned Gregg that it would get loud later.  It did.  About 1 in the morning they were still laughing, playing loud music and gunning engines.  Don't know what time the party broke up but in the morning there was no litter or any sign they had been there.  I guess it really is a fine place to hang out and they are respecting their right to do so.

Asheville, NC

 

Keith & Sandy dressed for dinner at our place!

We met up with Phoenix friends Sandy and Keith at a nice RV park along the French Broad River right in town in Asheville.  What a find!  1/2 off with Passport America, only $15 per night (our total overnight is up to $69 now for almost 30 nights on the road - not bad!)  A city trail for biking and walking was RIGHT in front of our RV's so we had a good ride one morning that also took us around an auto racetrack that's now used for bikers/walkers. 

We all took the Asheville Historic Trolley Tour (our 5th this month - we love these), walked about the beautiful Grove Park Inn Resort and downtown Asheville a bit.  Sandy and I toured the boardinghouse where author Thomas Wolfe lived as a boy and tried the chairs on the porch.  His classic book Look Homeward, Angel is essentially an autobiography with the names changed just a little and scathing enough that his family and fellow Ashevillians more or less drove him out of town after it was published.

Since Gregg & I had seen the Biltmore 2 years ago, we did not go again with their $50-60 ticket price now.  But I do remember it being something to not miss your first time in Asheville.