One of the best deals for sightseeing in NC is the ferry system along its coast. We take this ferry from Fort Fisher to Southport everytime we go to Wilmington just for the ride and the view. For a mere $5 we get to drive onto the ferry and sail across to the other side. It’s a short 30 minute ride, and the views are wonderful.

Here are some photos:
Waiting for the Ferry to come, we saw this bird also hanging about. (Click for larger view)



So what do you do during the 30 minute ride? Take pictures of course!

For entertainment, you can join the crowd at the back of the boat and feed the sea gulls. They are expert catchers and kept pace with the ferry during the entire crossing.

Click on the photos for a larger view. You will go to the album where there are more photos taken during the crossing.

Jade is a huge fan of the tv series One Tree Hill and she has gotten me hooked on watching it too, as improbable as the plot is. Now where do you ever find high school kids who seemingly live independently and pretty much do whatever they want without parental supervision? Well, on TV, apparently. In this show called One Tree Hill.

One Tree Hill is shot on location in Wilmington, NC, at the EUE Screen Gems Studios, the largest studio in the U.S. outside of Los Angeles, CA. Since we spent our last weekend at Wilmington, NC, we couldn’t pass up the chance to tour the set of One Tree Hill. The people attending the tour were mostly teenage girls like mine and their parents. I think I only saw a few adult only couples. The rest were like us, moms and their teenage girls.

Photography is not allowed inside the soundstage where all the sets are, photos are only allowed outside the buildings which are not very interesting in themselves. Inside, the stage, if you’re a fan of the show especially, is very interesting and brings to life some of the sights that have come familiar to you from the series. Some photos of what to expect can be seen on their website, but as the tour guides said, the sets change all the time so what you see may be different the next time around.

The tour, which lasts about an hour to an hour and a half costs $12 for adults and $5 for children under 12 years old. Tours are conducted on Saturdays and Sundays at 12 noon and 2 p.m. during the months between May and September. The tours are conducted by students from area colleges who are majoring in media communications or film. The girls and I concurred that they could do with a little bit more training, but they are an enthusiastic group and that more than makes up for their lack luster presentation.

Ever since my girls were newborns, we’ve always travelled with them. They are normally pretty good during our usual travels, but sometimes, like this weekend, being cooped up in a small space with your sisters can become too much. This is just a short taste of how our trip was this weekend…

This is the Clone whose sole purpose, it seems, is to annoy her sisters anyway she can.

It has been a rough two weeks at work, so this weekend was a nice way to wind down and get some time to relax. Hubby had some work to do and couldn’t get away so the girls and I drove ourselves down to Wilmington, NC. I had some work to do, finishing up intern training on Friday afternoon and a wrap up session on Saturday morning, but the rest of the time is free. It took us about two hours to drive down here. Normally, the drive takes about 2.5 to 3 hours, but surprisingly, even though it’s the day before a long weekend holiday, the roads were free of traffic and what little traffic there was was moving speedily like everyone was in a hurry to get to the coast. So were we.
We got here at noon and immediately went to the beach for a quick lunch before I had to go to work. Our first stop is Robert’s Market in Wrightsville beach where we got some munchies and drinks while we sat on the beach for a little while. Robert’s is an old fixture in Wrightsville Beach where you can get a sandwich and if you’re into surfing, can check on surf reports. It has this very beachy mural on the side of the building, and you can walk down this alley to the beach.

When we got to the sands, we found there were already quite a few people enjoying the sun. We found us a spot and had our lunch while listening to the waves and getting some sun. The clone wanted to go in the water and get wet, but we couldn’t settle in yet as I had to go do a few hours work still. It was a nice tease, but we sure hated to get up and leave after our lunch.
If you noted, as my girls did that the beaches here are not as wide as others in the world, that is because Wrightsville Beach is a barrier island. It is an island that juts out from the mainland’s coast. The intracoastal waterway runs in between the mainland and the barrier island. The beaches are subjected to erosion and are slowly getting narrower every year. There is a beautiful resort at the tip of this island that is in danger of being eventually claimed by the ocean.