Beach Trip - Part 1

In early October, I went to the beach with my sister and some of my girl cousins. One of my cousins has a lovely home at Kure Beach. If you remember, that is where we went on our vacation this summer. One day, we drove over to Wilmington and ate lunch and shopped. This is a view of the riverfront. There are lots of great restaurants and shops along the water.
One of the local sightseeing boats. Wilmington sits on the Cape Fear River.
My shrimp and grits! This version was a bit different, but delicious!! The grits were fried, instead of creamy.
This is my older sister. Her name is Cecelia, but we call her CC. She is a wonderful sister and we love spending time together. She and I live about 2 hours from each other, so we are fortunate to get to see each other a good bit. Nothing better than time spent with your sister!!!
From the boardwalk area we could see the Battleship North Carolina. It has been restored and is a tourist attraction now. We did not go on it. Just looked from a distance. I toured it as a child.
Here is another view of the riverfront area looking back towards the big bridge coming into Wilmington.
It would not be the south unless moss was hanging in the trees.
Isn't this a cute place to eat? Look at the people eating out on their own private balconies. This restaurant was right on the river front. What a wonderful view!!
This was a view from the bridge as we were coming into Wilmington. Such a pretty city. I didn't get any good pictures of the old houses, but Wilmington has lots and lots of beautiful restored houses near the downtown area.
This is a picture from my beach chair as I sat out on the beach one afternoon and read my book and watched the world go by. At the beach, I love to sit and listen to the roar of the ocean waves and watch the seagulls running along the sand.
Notice all the people on the pier. It was wall to wall people!!! Needless to say, the fish were running and there was not an empty spot to stand and fish. We loved walking down to the pier and checking on the activity in the evening. Lots of fish being caught.
This guy and his friends sit on the end of the pier and wait for people to feed them fish that they don't want to keep. It was fascinating watching the pelicans eat their fish snacks!
A view of the beach from the pier. Even though it was October, the temperatures were in the mid to high 80's and there were lots of people swimming and surfing while we were there.
During the 2nd weekend of October each year, the Blues and Jazz Festival is held at Carolina Beach (next to where we were staying). It is a big event, but we did not go. Leon Russell was the headline artist this year.
I loved these big plants that were along the boardwalk near the beach. It is hard to tell from the picture, but they were huge!!!

As you can see, we had a wonderful time at the beach. It takes so long to get my pictures uploaded that I will do this trip in 2 parts. More to come!