Well, after realizing that we hadn't had a getaway with just the 2 of us in 6-7 years, we agreed it was time to get some "us" time. We wanted somewhere close and not too expensive since it would only be able to be a weekend, so we chose Wilmngton/Wrightsville beach, NC area. It's a 2 hour drive away, and while we were spoiled with Nj's close proximity to everything, it wasn't too bad. We stayed at the Wingate by Wyndham in Wilmington, and it was really nice, clean and had a great free continental breakfast where you could make your own Belgian waffles. How great is that?
They also had hard boiled eggs, which I love at con, breakfast for the protein, since they are usually just danishes, toast etc.
The first place we went was downtown Wilmington, which was a cute, quaint area just a few blocks by a few blocks. It had a lot of residential streets before the shopping district. It was filled with these gorgeous trees, which i think were Cypress. I'm not sure though, they had this mossy curtains hanging off of them and overhanging the street, and the homes were a gorgeous mix of Victorian and Colonial, with lots of brick, columns and beautiful architecture.
The battleship NC is docked in the river there. Having been on the battleship NJ, we felt we didn't beed to go see this. I mean, unless you're a history or naval buff, they are pretty much the same, ya know what I'm saying? On our side of the river, there was a small plaza and memorial park, and the concrete benches were all sponsored by local businesses, so we were delighted to see one becnh paid for by The Crazy Horse and Pure Gold, 2 local strip clubs. Way to go girls! LOL
The rest of the area has historic shopping, The Cotton Exchange, cute little boutiques, eclectic shops, and lots of bars & eateries. We didn't stay long. It was 102 degrees with a heat index of 112, and it was just stifling! Plus many of the businesses were closed due to water main break somewhere in town. Just our luck, right?
We ate that night in a small chain place called Sticky Fingers, which sold BBQ and ribs, etc. We had an appetizer of loaded french fries. I had smoked meatloaf with a whiskey BBQ sauce and sweet potato casserole.
It was really good. The restaurant was cool cuz they had 6 different kinds of BBQ sauce on he table you could choose from.
Chris had a pork platter, LOL. sausages, pulled pork, coleslaw and collard greens. I'd never eaten collards before so had to try. Not my fav thing in the world, i found them on the bitter side, so did Chris. We had a free peach cobbler for dessert, and it was mighty fine, i telly ou especially thr price tag!
Sunday started out with he Fort Fisher NC aquarium.
It's on the small side compared to others we have been to, but with an $8 admission, well worth it! It had some gorgeous specimens of jellyfish,
saltwater fish, a huge ocean tank complete with sharks, a monstrous Moray Eel and a diver feeding them and answering questions. They had a local area exhibit room too, with snakes, local river and lake species, and a white alligator named Luna! We went to Fort Fisher beach afterwards and spent an hour or so there.
It's a quiet, clean beach with free paring. Gotta love that! It was quiet, I think because of the overbearing heat. We dipped our feet in the water and it was pretty windy so actually being there on the beach was comfortable.
Heading back to town we drove through Kure Beach and Carolina beach, the "it" beaches in this area" The street was lined with the huge condos/home painted in sherberty lollipop colors and cute restaurants and those quirky art deco building from years ago. It reminded me a lot of the NJ shore area, so it made me really happy. We stopped for lunch at a local diner-y type place called Jimbo's. The food was decent but not great, but I enjoyed the old style diner atmosphere. Plus, they had cucumber salad! Where do you see that out? It was so good too. Chris, however got a glass of sweet tea dumped on him from the poor elderly waitress who was all tuckered out at the end of her day. Luckily, not too much got him though.
We went back and took a nap since the heat just drains you, ya know? We decided to drive to Wrightsville Beach, which is the closest beach to Wilmington. The town of Wrightsville is very beachy scene with open air bars, eateries, etc. It's also a popular vaca spot, even though here they charge for parking, it wasn't too bad. $12 for a whole day? Come on NJ'sians, that's nothing right? LOL It was 5pm and since they don't charge after 6pm we got away for $2 for 1 hour. A pittance.
The beach here was a little busier, and there is this huge concrete fishing pier that you can pay $1 to go out on. We walked on the beach, dipped the tootsies again,
and watched pelicans flying around. We did go up on the pier, some crazy guy jumped off of it into the ocean, it had to be 30-40 feet drop. What a nut, luckily for him, he was ok.
Someone had caught a small 18 inch shark while we were up there, so we got to look at that. After about an hour we had had enough of the sand sticking to our sweaty bodies, so back home to shower and figure out what's for dinner. We enjoy finding local places and wanted to avoid chain. You can eat that anywhere right? So we decided on this place from our phones directory called Elziabeth's pizza. Yeah, I know it sounds like a college hangout with Formica tables and grease everywhere, but sometimes those are the best food, so off we went.
The place actually turned out to be in a strip mall, so we were nervous, but upon entering we were completely surprised. One funny thing is that they re was a bar next to it, that had a marquee announcing a cornhole tournament, we took a pic of that cuz it's just funny, not realizing that Cornhole is now some bar game. Who would have known? We've never heard of it.so anyway, the restaurant had a cute atmosphere with the big Italian mural, dark wood booths, these awesome palm fans that moved back and forth to circulate the air, and postcards inlaid in the the tables from Italy. It smelled so good in there, that ours mouths were watering pretty quickly. We started with a bruschetta appetizer.
It was so good that I knew I was gonna have a great dinner.
I had ordered lasagna and wasn't disappointed, it covered the entire platter, yes not plate, PLATTER! It was gigantic and probably the best lasagna I've ever eaten. Sweet, rich, meaty and cheesy. Oh MY!
Chris has a meat tortellini that was just as huge as mine. He certainly enjoyed that. The salads were a little bland and regular, so nothing spectacular there. We skipped dessert since we couldn't even finish our entrees, but they came back to the hotel and got devoured before we went to sleep after watching True Blood. haha
The next day was our last, and we just went back to downtown Wilmington and hit a few other stores we missed the first time around, it was cooler (minimally) since it was morning, but we quickly got pooped and left for home, but not before taking a pic of this quirky window dressing with a Mae West Can Can inspired Pig?
The store wasn't open, so we couldn't go in and see what was in there but that was crazy enough!
So as, you can tell, we had a great time and am hoping to go back one day for more beachy experiences.
The rest of our pictures are
here in case you want tyo peek. I aspologize for them being so out of order, They were taken with our cam,a nd our phones, since I forgot our cam battery charger.
