Summer vacation: Beach

The Beach wasn't walking distance from the condo so we'd drive to one of the public parking areas, pay $2.00 and play on the beach for about an hour. It was so hot, and the water was so rough it wore you out, that about as long as we could stand at a time.

Here's a Panoramic taken with the isweep feature of my new Sony Cyber-shot H55 camera. I think it's about a 180* view (you have to click on it to see the whole thing):

Summer vacation Day 5: Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson

This quiet, picturesque site on the banks of the Cape Fear River has an amazing past. In 1726 Maurice Moore, the son of a former South Carolina governor, founded this port town. North Carolina was a colony of England, and the town was named Brunswick to honor George I, the king of England, who was a native of Brunswick, Germany.

The port became a bustling shipping area for exporting tar, pitch, and turpentine. This "sticky gold" was essential for building and maintaining the great wooden sailing ships of the Royal Navy and the merchant fleet that sailed the oceans between Europe, its American colonies, and the islands of the Caribbean.

A major pre-Revolutionary port on North Carolina's Cape Fear River, Brunswick was razed by British troops in 1776 and never rebuilt. During the Civil War, Ft. Anderson was constructed atop the old village site.

After decades of calm, the site once again entered the forefront of history in a national storm, the Civil War. In 1861 the Confederate States of America decided to build a large fort at the site as part of the river defense of Wilmington. The Cape Fear was an essential route for supplies moving by rail from Wilmington to Petersburg and Richmond for General Lee's army.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, archaeologists uncovered foundations from Brunswick's earliest days. The most visible structure is the hulk of St. Philip's Anglican Church with its surviving walls dating back to 1754. Another interesting foundation is Russellborough, an old sea captain's house that was used by royal governors Tryon and Dobbs.

   

 

Summer Vacation Day 4: Battleship North Carolina

Tuesday we went to check out the Battleship North Carolina in Wilmington.

During World War II, NORTH CAROLINA participated in every major naval offensive in the Pacific area of operations and earned 15 battle stars.
Impressive!

Summer Vacation Day 3: Fishing

Monday morning John and Ryan went out on a short chartered-boat inland fishing trip.

John's fish

Ryan's fish

Shark!

Another shark!

John's other fish

Summer Vacation Day 2: Fort Fisher/Aquarium

On Sunday we slept in and fixed breakfast in the condo, then drove down to Kure Beach and visited Fort Fisher and the Aquarium:

Kevin and Pal

Ghost Gator

Me and John:

(My legs are not really fish-belly white, I don't know why the picture made it look like that!)

Civil War battlements at Fort Fisher

Going to check out the Big Gun on top of the battlement.

Bring it on, Yankees.

Fort Fisher was a Civil War blockade site, and then later used as a training area during WWII. It is a very pretty site...beyond the trees in this picture is the ocean:

Summer Vacation Day 1

The Trip

It was about a 7-hour trip to Wrightsville Beach from here, including a total of about an hour or so of stops for eat, gas, and Welcome Center/Bathroom breaks.

The Condo

The Houghton Condo was very nice, and alot larger than it looks from the picture. It's three-bedrooms and two-baths are divided into four half-floor levels.

On the bottom is the front door/entrance, an entry closet, a laundry closet, and a side door out to the carport.

From there you go up about 5 steps into the livingroom. To the right of that is the diningroom, and to the right of that is the kitchen.

The livingroom had sliding doors leading out to a nice big back deck, but it was too hot and too buggy for us to be able to spend time out there. I didn't even think to take a picture out there since we only went out maybe once or twice, and not again.

From the livingroom you go up another short flight of steps and there's a master bedroom and bath. The bath also opened into the hallway.

This bedroom was called the Maui room and had a Hawaiian mural on one wall. Also had a balcony, but we didn't go out on it.

Then you go up another short flight of steps to the top floor where there are two more bedrooms, one smaller and then another master-size, with a doorway into the upstairs bathroom.

The upstairs bathroom had a clawfoot tub that I loved! I'm definately going to get me one of those one of these days.

Ryan stayed in the other master bedroom, called the Bonaire room.

Kevin stayed in the Key West room that had bunk beds and a little fold-out sofa.

Here's John cooking us chicken enchilatas for dinner: