Wilmington, NC 2nd Anniversary Trip

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I'm going to preface this by saying, I had not planned to do a trip report about this so I really didnt take many pics, but we had so much fun on this trip, I wanted to share some of the restaurants and places we went for others to try. If your not bored you can probably just take a look at the few links and pictures and move on. Otherwise, here is our trip...

Wilmington, NC 2012

With summer drawing to a close and the weather getting colder my wife and I decided to start fall off a little differently. Last year for our anniversary we went to the mountains as we usually do in the fall, but this year we set course for the North Carolina Coast south of the outer banks in Wilmington. We knew we wanted to camp as the weather would be near perfect. Originally we discussed camping on the beach, but after some research we wanted to check out the details of that in person first. So we did something that I said I would always try to avoid…. We reserved a site at a KOA. While I have always avoided KOAs like the plague, this one somehow had great reviews online. The KOA sounded much better than all of the other camping locations in the area so we agreed to try it out.

We left from Chapin,SC on Friday morning after dropping Roxie our dog off with my wife’s parents. The drive up wasn’t as bad as I would have expected. There was basically no traffic and we made great time. I checked my MPG on my GPS when we filled up near Lumberton, NC and I actually got 15MPG towing the loaded camping trailer with the A/C on. When we pulled into Wilmington we were getting hungry so we headed to one of the restaurants we had on our list of places to visit. We stopped into Pizzeta’s Pizzaria. On the outside it is located in a new strip mall, but on the inside it is a quaint little pizzeria. The pizza was delicious as was the salad with homemade croutons.

After chatting about our plans for the weekend for a bit we made our way to the KOA to see what we were working with.

We made our way down Market Street in Wilmington passing stores, shops, gas stations, car dealerships….it looked like the campground was going to be in the middle of the hustle and bustle of town. As we got to the KOA we turned in hoping for the best, and what we found was as good as we could have hoped for. The campground was quiet, clean, and well taken care of, well hidden away from the main road. We checked in and one of the hosts led us to our tent site. We passed plenty of RVers and campers on the way to our site, but the place looked great for family camping. Our site was on the end of a trail near the pool. We unhooked the trailer, setup the tent and unloaded some of the stuff out of the jeep. Then without too much time wasted we made our way to downtown Historic Wilmington to visit.

Historic Downtown Wilmington reminds me of Charleston, SC and Savannah, GA but with a bit of hippy Asheville, NC thrown into the mix. Andrea wanted to see some of the shops and we made our way around the town and down to the boardwalk. We managed to only buy a few things and then hung out on the riverwalk. For dinner, we looked at our list of restaurants we had found and decided on the Caprice Bistro for some French cuisine. The atmosphere was unmistakably French and the food was great. After dinner we decided to head back to camp and make a fire.

Saturday we woke to cool temps and the sky was a bit overcast. For this trip we had decided not to cook anything, which anyone that knows us may find odd. We figured it was our anniversary, and we weren’t spending money on a hotel, or Bed and Breakfast, so the least we could do is try the local food scene. According to many websites about Wilmington you have to try Britt’s Donuts on the boardwalk at Carolina Beach if you’re in the area, so we decided to do what any self-respecting American would do and try the sweet sugary treats for breakfast!
I must say, I’m a sucker for Krispy Kreme donuts, and these things knock them out of the park. We split a half dozen but were only able to eat two each at 8am on the beach. We enjoyed the boardwalk at Carolina beach for a while then hopped in the jeep to get our pass for Fort Fisher Rec Area to drive out on the beach and chill for a while. We stopped into the ranger station at the entrance to the beach and bought our 24hr Day pass for $12 and I locked the hubs and we headed out onto the beach. The sand for the first half mile is about as dry, fluffy, and deep as I can imaging. We saw a local in an f250 having a hard time. I started to slow down near him but he waved us on. As I looked in the rear view I saw two big rooster tails, one front and one back, from the open diffs. We moseyed down the empty beach till we found a spot that looked good, it had a pretty decent fall down to the water from where we parked. We unpacked the cooler and some random beach stuff and hung out till around 12. During that time we saw a good many people come out on the beach. Most of them fishing.

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On the backside of the dunes you could drive to the intercoastal ww
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At around 12 we decided to go see the NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher, which we could see from where we were on the beach, but across the marsh. It was a fun stop for $8 each and we spent an hour or so there before heading into Carolina Beach to Lunch at The SurfHouse.
On this trip we had said we would try to avoid the big gaudy signed fried seafood shacks and make our way to some of the smaller stops instead. The Surfhouse is just that, a simple sign on a building about 2 blocks from the beach. I had the Mahi Sandwich and Andrea had the Mahi Tacos and they were both great, I would highly suggest this place for lunch if your in the area.

After lunch it was time to see what Freeman Park was like. When we pulled up there was a line of jeeps waiting to get in, this was totally different from the laid back area we were in earlier that day. We paid the $20 fee and made our way through the rutted out dry powder sand to the beach and were amazed at the number of people and vehicles on the beach. There had to have been hundreds of trucks and suvs. We drove the whole beach just taking in the sights and then found a nice open area where the tide had gone down and left some beach open so we grabbed it. While parked enjoying the beach, I swear I saw so many different kinds of vehicles. Just to name a few: CJ-10 pickup on 1 tons with coilovers, 5 ton Military Truck (it may have been a 2.5) , 1980s Subaru legacy with mud tires, lifted chevy on 49 iroks, and numerous other jeeps and trucks. This beach also had fire rings, and bathrooms along the beach for campers and visitors to use, which was a nice addition over fort fisher.

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As evening rolled around we packed up and headed back down the beach to Havanahs in Carolina Beach. We had some great shrimp, scallops, and lobster. That place was great, but a bit pricey. After dinner we were about worn out, we headed back to camp to hang out by the fire before bed.

Sunday was pretty uneventful although before we packed up we ventured out to find some breakfast and stumbled upon a rib and bbq shack that had an awesome breakfast special. After breakfast we packed up and headed back the 4 hours home.

It was a Great 2nd Anniversary trip with my wife Andrea, we had a lot of fun and some great food. We were already talking about an OBX trip next year.

 
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