Today, our last full day of vacation, we decided to go to Cape Lookout, and we did it by way of Harkers Island.  I picked a ferry at a place called Calico Jacks Inn & Marina.  Harkers Island is a quiet little island nestled in the Back Sound behind Cape Lookout and Shackleford Banks.  We took our time getting ready as we had made no ferry reservations, and weren't sure who was going with us, etc.  As it turned out, Bill and Lin joined myself, Emily, Adrienne, and Erin.  Thanks to the GPS, we took some shortcuts that cut our drive time to Harkers Island to about an hour and 20, and we arrived at the marina right about 12:15 - just in time for the 12:15 ferry.  But we hadn't eaten lunch, and the marina really only had snack food, so they recommended a restaurant about 2 miles down the road called The Fish Hook Grill where we could go get some carry out and maybe make it back for the 12:45 ferry.   They were busy but got our food together pretty quickly but we didn't make it back to the marina until about 12:50 so we missed the boat and would have to wait until the 1:15 ferry.  So we hung out and ate our lunch on the front porch of the marina.

The ferry arrived and took us over to the island, dropping us off at a dock near the lighthouse.  We signed up for the 4pm return ferry so we had about 2-1/2 hours to hang around.

A nice boardwalk ran from the doc to the bathhouse and gift shop, then to the lighthouse and keepers quarters and all the way across the island to the beach on the ocean side.  After checking out the gift shop and hitting the bathrooms we wandered over to the ocean beach for some shell hunting and some fun.  The waves were gigantic (some as high as 8 feet) and there were some surfers out in the water.  I never went in deeper than about waist deep, though yes, the occasional 8 foot wave did tower over me!  But since Emily couldn't go into the rough surf, we shortly headed back over to the sound beach for a swim (just me and Emily).  The rest of the gang went to check out the lighthouse and keepers quarters.

The water in the sound was WARM.  Very shallow, and a good 10 degrees warmer than the ocean... the top 2 feet of water must've been between 85 ad 90, it was very warm.  Emily and I had our goggles so we did some pseudo-snorkeling, looking for shells.  Of course there aren't a lot of shells in the sound but Emily did manage to find a "kitten's paw".  After about a half hour of tooling around the waters of the sound, we headed back to the ocean.  I wanted to get some time in the waves.

I managed to convince Emily to stay up on shore where the waves had already broken and just washed around her feet mostly, while Erin and I played in the waves and the rest of the gang hunted for shells.  They actually found quite a few cool ones.

However, the coolest shell was "found" by Emily.  A shell hunter in the water tossed a big whelk near her.  She didn't seem him toss it, but she did discover the shell laying there, and she thought she'd "found" it herself.  Who are we to tell her otherwise?  the guy who tossed it up near her had obviously found plenty of his own otherwise I suspect he would've walked it up and put it with the rest of his shells.

I wish we could've stayed another hour, as 4 o'clock rolled around pretty quickly, and we headed back to the docks for our return ferry trip.

Nothing else interesting to report.  Bob returned this evening.  We got home around 6:00.  It was Bill's birthday, so to celebrate we ordered take-out again from the Hurricane Restaurant.

I was very excited today about our planned trip to Cape Lookout.  We'd made reservations on the 8:45 ferry with Island Ferry Adventures and a guided tour with Port City Tour Company to visit Shackleford Banks, part of the Cape Lookout National Seashore.  Shackleford Banks is a 9 mile island at the southern end of North Carolina's Outer Banks, and is home to over a hundred wild horses, left by the sunken ships of Spanish explorers over 400 years ago.

the ferry dropped us off on the southern end of the island, and there happened to be a small herd of the horses right at the ferry dropoff, so we didn't actually have to go hunting for them.  However, we'd paid an extra $10 for the walking tour, so we followed our excellent guide Larry off into the wild, where we learned about the horses, fiddler and ghost crabs and other wildlife on the island.  We also spent some time on the ocean side of the island where the surf was quite rough, looking for shells.  The water felt great.

After the walking tour (about 2 miles I'd guess) and the shell hunting, we headed back over to the sound side for some swimming.  I was the only one with the sense to put my suit on when we left in the morning, so me and Emily were the only ones who went swimming.

I guess I should mention that this trip was just Adrienne and I, Emily, and Erin.  Bill and Lin and Marnie and Derrick stayed at the resort (and Bob had actually gone home Wednesday morning).

The water on the sound side was surprisingly deep.  It actually dropped off to 10' or more only about 20 feet offshore.

We got on the 12:20pm ferry back to Beaufort, and hit up Clawson's 1905 for lunch on the recommendation of our ferry boat captain.  Lunch was excellent.  Emily and I went into the General Store afterwards to look around, and on our way out, Emily tripped down the stairs (about 3 steps) and went face first into the sidewalk.  Very unpleasant.  Amazingly she survived the incident without any blood or broken facial parts.  And I really was amazed because after seeing her face hit the sidewalk, I thought for sure I was going to pick her up and have her nose be bloodied at the very least.   She managed to calm down after about 5 minutes but during most of the ride home she was telling us how certain she was that something was wrong with her.  My little drama queen, I love her!

I have no recollection of what we did for dinner that night.  I think Emily and I had leftovers while Adrienne and Marnie and Erin had dinner at the Hurricane Restaurant.

Tomorrow - back to the islands!

Today was our day to stick around New Bern.  We intended to go down to historic New Bern and have lunch at The Cow Cafe, a cool little place we discovered on Middle Street last time we were in New Bern, then visit Tryon Palace.  Tryon Palace was build in 1767 as the home of the Royal Governor, but it burned down in 1798 and wasn't re-built until the 1950s. 

Anyway, lunch was good, but as we finished it started to rain.  So instead of heading over to Tryon Palace, we shopped.  There are a lot of cool little shops on Middle Street, including The Pepsi Store which was supposedly the place where Pepsi was invented, then called "Brad's Drink".  The pepsi Store consisted of a soda fountain where you could sit at the bar an order a Pepsi for 50 cents, and a bunch of pepsi-branded merchandise.  It was kinda lame, actually.  Plus, I'm a coke drinker.  Coke Zero, actually.

We ended up spending a couple hours wandering up maybe 3 blocks of Middle Street before getting ice cream at the end of our shopping trip.  By that time it had stopped raining but it was very wet, so we just headed back to the resort.  We ordered take-out from The Hurricane Restaurant, which was onsite at the marina.  I wrote a review of this experience on Google:

We recently stayed at the Fairfield Harbour Resort, home of the Hurricane Restaurant. We had a large party and ordered carry-out from the Hurricane twice. Everyone in our party enjoyed their food. For my part, I had a full rack of ribs the first night, which were good... fries and slaw on the side. The second time I went with the Seafood Fra Diablo, which was shrimp and scallops over pasta with a spicy marinara sauce - also good. This isn'ta "top of the line" or fancy upscale restaurant, but as far as "resort/hotel restaurants" go it was good enough for us to eat twice at in a week. Of course, it has the convenience of being the only nice restaurant within 10 miles of the resort.

Off to bed early as we had a big day planned for tomorrow - our trip to Beaufort and Shackleford Banks.

Our original plans for Tuesday had been to hang around New Bern.  This would've allowed Emily and I to drive back to Garner for a 6pm swim meet - the first "real" swim meet of the summer swim season.  Unfortunately, because the trip to Topsail hadn't occurred on Monday, and Wednesday wasn't going to work either, we ended up going to Topsail Beach on Tuesday.  We left around 9am in a bit of rain, and it poured pretty hard at times... we managed to drive out of the rain but then back into it on and off.  As we drove down the main drag on Topsail Island (Hwy  210 / Anderson Street), there was some really high standing water on the road.  Thankfully we were in the pickup truck so it was no problem.  I think I did power wash someone's house going through one puddle.

We were visiting our friends, Bob and Debbie Grady.  Adrienne's dad and Bob have been friends for a long time, and Adrienne has been visiting the Grady's at Topsail Beach since the mid 80s I think. 

Marnie rode down with Bill and Lin for this trip, and left Derrick back at the resort with Bob.  It was raining hard when we arrived at their second row beach house on the south end of the island, so we went inside to relax for a while.  Eventually it did stop raining, so Emily and I went out to the beach for about a half hour to play.

Debbie made us one of her typical awesome beach lunches - a good ol' southern steampot.  Smoked sausage, corn on the cob, new potatoes, and shrimp, all boiled together.  And the shrimp was good and fresh too!  I love fresh peel-n-eat shrimp.  As usual, lunch was great.

Nothing much else to tell about Tuesday.  We headed back to New Bern around 5 o'clock.  We picked up Chinese takeout on the way home for dinner, and went back to our condo to play Blockus and Uno before retiring for the night.

Those of you who have read my blog know I'm a Wyndham Vacation Resorts timeshare owner.  That means I've got points to be used at any of Wyndham's fabulous luxury resorts.

If you're looking to head to Orlando this summer, don't stay in a hotel!  I might be able to get you a one or two bedroom suite at the Wyndham Bonnet Creek Resort - inside Disney Property!  Or at the Wyndham Star Island or Cypress Palms resorts - both within a few miles.

No timeshare presentation required - you're renting from me.  Rates as low as $75/night.

Lots of availability in July, August, and even into the fall.

Just email me, rick@webworksllc.com, if you're interested.

Spend Christmas At Disney World!

AVAILABLE: 1 room deluxe suite, sleeps 4 at the Wyndham Bonnet Creek Resort - "inside the gates" at Disney World!

$900 : December 20-27 (7 nights)

Dear vacationer,

My name is Rick, and I have some extra points in my Wyndham Vacation Resort account, so I'd like to rent them out to you. You will not be required to attend a timeshare presentation, it will be just like staying at a hotel.

A really, REALLY nice hotel.

Wyndham's Bonnet Creek Resort is their absolutely top of the line resort, and it's "inside the gates" at Disney World in Orlando.

Located right next to Disney's own Carribean Beach Resort, the Bonnet Creek Resort is right off Lake Buena Vista Drive, mere minutes from Disney theme parks and other attractions. The aerial photo to the left shows Epcot Center, and I've watched the epcot center fireworks from the balcony of one of the rooms at Bonnet Creek.

Aside from the usual Disney attractions, it's easy to get onto Interstate 4 from here, and take a quick trip to Seaworld, Universal, and other Orlando area attractions.

Unit Features

• Full Kitchen
• Washer/Dryer
• Whirlpool Tub
• Air Conditioning

Amenities

• 2 Outdoor Swimming Pools
• Lazy River
• “Get Out & Play” Activities Program
• Exercise Equipment
• Outdoor Hot Tub
• Game Room
• Playground
• Miniature Golf

Area Attractions

• Magic Kingdom® Park
• Epcot®
• Disney-MGM Studios
• Disney’s Animal Kingdom® Theme Park
• Downtown Disney® Area

Area Activities

• Lake
• Golf
• Boating
• Horseback Riding
• Restaurants
• Shopping
• Masseuse
• Live Entertainment
• Water-Skiing
• Jet Skiing

Pictures

The Wyndham Resort at Bonnet Creek

This aerial photo shows nearby Disney theme Parks!

Looking to vacation in Florida in the next month or so?  I can get you in a super-nice 1 bedroom condo within a few miles or Disney property, with tons of amenities for as little as $75/night.

$75.00/night !!!

Let me hook you up. I have extra points in my Wyndham Vacation Resort account... 

There is availability at many of Wyndham's outstanding resort properties in Florida, such as the Star Island resort in Kissimmee. 

Only a few miles from Disney property, Star Island offers many amenities: 

- 2 Outdoor Swimming Pools 
- “Get Out & Play” Activities Program 
- Driving Range & Putting Green 
- Exercise Equipment 
- Day Spa 
- Playground 
- Live Entertainment 
- Picnic/BBQ Area 
- Jet Skiing 
- Outdoor Children’s Pool 
- Lake 
- 9 Tennis Courts 
- 1 Outdoor & 1 Indoor Hot Tub 
- Fishing 
- Health Club 
- Clubhouse 
- Basketball 
- Laundry Facilities 

I can get you a 1 bedroom unit here for as little as $75 a night (for a 6-7 night stay) or $100/night for a 2 bedroom (6-7 night stay) 

Other Orlando-area resorts are also available - even some limited availability at Wyndham's Bonnet Creek Resort. 

Let me know what dates you're looking for, and I can check availability! 

Just email and let me know! 

I've attached some pictures of the Star Island resort 

Rick