Carolina...callin' me home!

Three years ago, we fell in love with South Carolina during our visit to Hilton Head Island.  If we didn't have a goal of getting to all 50 states, we might have just made it our only vacation spot.  This year when deciding where to go, we remembered that great trip and decided to go to North Carolina in hopes that we would enjoy it as much. We were not disappointed. Not for one second! 

As with most trips that we have taken, our favorite things were free, cheap or food-related. :)

The adventure begins:

Getting there

The trip to North Carolina started off bright and early...yes, the clock says 3:48 AM!!!!  However, the airport is quite peaceful at that time and the boys were great.  Now the 2 hour delay in Chicago...........YUCK!  The boys were good, though.  Thank goodness for nice strangers to meet along the way. 

Atlantic Beach, North Carolina

Our condo at Ocean Sands for a few days at the beach:

 

Walking to the beach (literally in the backyard of the complex)

Beach bums

When we weren't at the beach, we enjoyed the pool at the condo.

Aquarium

This was a great aquarium. The boys enjoyed petting sting rays and all of the different types of crabs that they had in their hands-on exhibits. We even got in 1/2 price because of our membership at the Riverside Zoo here in Scottsbluff.  BONUS!

Cool sand sculpture

Delicious food

We didn't starve while we were gone.  In fact, almost everything we ate was perfect!!

Our favorites in:

Atlantic Beach

The Shark Shack-fun outdoor setting with great fresh seafood

Amos Mosquito's-YUM!! Perfect Seafood topped off with S'mores

Morehead City

Cox Family Restaurant-True Southern hospitality and great food

Crispino's Pizza-Great pizza and the owner was lots of fun to chat with

Raleigh

Bad Daddy's Burgers-Great burgers in a fun setting

The Pit-BBQ that melts in your mouth

Chapel Hill

The Pig-More delicious BBQ and GREAT Macaroni and Cheese

Megalodon Fossils

The North Carolina State Maritime Museum

This place is awesome for a free-will donation museum in Beaufort. They have lots of remnants from Blackbeard's ship.  The boys loved all of the pirate things. Beaufort was full of historical homes.  The oldest one we saw was built in 1768.  WOW!!! What history these homes have seen!

ARRRRRGGHHHH

 Fort Macon State Park

With our little history buff, we decided that it would be good to take in some of the history of the area.  Fort Macon was just down the road from Atlantic Beach and was awesome. Especially for being a free state park.  

Love this sign. 

We found it interesting the the Fort identified the Civil War as the War Between the State. It is interesting to view things from a different perspective than we have been traditionally taught.

Fun in Raleigh 

One of the great parks in Raleigh.  It was right next to North Carolina State University.  Lots of fun things to do for free!  

 Marbles Kids's Museum

What a fun place!  It had so many cool exhibits that we hadn't seen at other children's museums before including a savings themed "Moneypalooza" and also a hockey rink.  Mason even got to use a real saw in the building area.  Very cool. The boys loved it!

 We also went to the North Carolina Museum of Science and History. It was another amazing free-will donation place to visit.  It had 4 stories of exhibits and we could have spent hours there.

Rivals

We couldn't drive through Durham and Chapel Hill without stopping to see the homes of some great NCAA basketball moments.  The only question is...

Duke....

 or North Carolina???

 

Heading Home

After a great time in North Carolina, we had to come home.  We had a long layover in Chicago so we took the chance to go and have some good pizza at Gino's.  

This is shortly after Sam decided that it is OK to smack the flight attendant on the backside as she walked by.  What are we going to do with this kid??

Ahhh...Vacation

If you couldn't tell from the gushing, we LOVED our time in North Carolina.  The people were so nice.  We've travelled many times and encountered a few nice people along the way.  This trip there was always someone there to chat with, get information about the area, or just comment on how great our guys are (of course we agreed with them!)  We will be back at sometime in our lives. Who knows, maybe sooner than later.  To end, I'm leaving you with one of our favorite Eric Church songs...after being to his home state, I love the song even more!  Goodbye Carolina!