Beach Escape: Wilmington

Last week was a little stressful at work.  On top of normal month-end duties, I was also in the midst of our long-term planning season and...I was asked to fill-in for one of the managers while he was on vacation.  Of course, the week ended up being a perfect storm.  Despite the challenges, I've had several compliments on my handling of the situation.  But, by the end of the week, I was definitely feeling a little stir-crazy.

We'd committed to attending and 80s party on Friday.  There are blackmail pictures out there somewhere (which has already been threatened...but really who would be surprised to see me doing something else crazy?).  So we drove down to the beach on Saturday.

I was fortunate to find a room for the one night at The Verandas, a bed and breakfast in downtown Wilmington.  I was very intrigued by the inn's history.  It was built by a merchant, converted into a convent, became the town's most notorious whorehouse, burned to the timbers, then renovated into it's current state.  Yes, I spent the weekend in a whorehouse...but only had one proposition...and his money comes from the same bank account.

I adored all of the old houses in Wilmington.

Wilmington is a very neat town.  One of the most interesting things is that the beach isn't the main attraction.  The happening spot is downtown on the river.  There's lots of cool little boutique shops and great restaurants.  Despite giving it a good old college try at a shopping extravaganza, I only came home with two dresses.  And I was in architectural heaven when we walked around downtown.  There were so many gorgeous historic buildings with interesting an unique features.  I want.

Twirling in my new dress.

My other fashion find from the weekend.

On a recommendation from the innkeeper, we went to a little hole-in-the-wall oyster bar for dinner...and ate two dozen oysters.  We ordered three rounds of oysters.  The last round was in place of dessert, if that tells you anything...

We drove out to the beach both Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.  It doesn't matter how cold it is, I have to get my toes in the water everytime we visit.  Cody did get in the water on Sunday.  I also managed to get sunburned (despite wearing a jacket & only being out for half an hour).

The finale of our weekend was touring the battleship the USS North Carolina, which is permananetly docked (or, more accurately, parked in a bunch of mud) in the Cape Fear River as a memorial to North Carolina servicemen that lost their lives in WWII.  We went through it kind of fast, but it took every bit of the two hours we had before it closed to see the majority of it.  It showed the conditions onboard, but there wasn't a lot of history behind the ship itself.  Also, a lot of the crew pictures showed them working in their underwear...maybe it's a Navy thing?