Memorial Day Weekend

For Memorial Day this year, I planned a trip down to Southport, NC.  One of our bucket list items is visiting and climbing all of the NC Lighthouses.  Last year we visited Cape Lookout and had a great time climbing it and exploring the island.

Cape Lookout- June 2012

From Southport, you can visit Old Baldy on Bald Head Island and Oak Island Lighthouse on Oak Island/Caswell Beach and we saw both!  But I'm jumping the gun!  Before I get to that, let me start at the beginning of our trip!

Originally, we planned to leave after work on Friday and drive down to Southport.  That would have put us arriving at 8pm or later and the Innkeepers were okay with that, but check-in was at 3pm.  After thinking about it more and realizing that we could easily take the entire day off, we did just that!  We woke up at a normal hour, packed our stuff and we were on the road by 9am.  Which was perfect because I made reservations for lunch at the Wilmington Tea Room.  You'll remember this post where I visited the tea room with the girls in February.  I had been raving about the seafood bisque and the tower of treats since then and I just wanted Kevin to experience it too, so we went.  He thought I was overselling everything and couldn't believe it was that good until he tried it for himself.  Once again he's the BEST husband in the world!  We were seated between two bridal parties of all women and he was the only man in the room.  He was a little uncomfortable, but he didn't complain too much and really enjoyed the tea.

Here's a picture of the seafood bisque since I devoured mine last time and never got a shot of it!  Yumm-o!

 
Onward from Wilmington to Southport and we arrived around 1pm.  We pulled up in front of the Robert Ruark Inn and asked to use the facilities before walking down to the waterfront and swinging for a good two hours.  It was warm out, but so cool and relaxing in the shade!

Panorama from our swing in the shade overlooking the river!

Then it was back to the Inn and we checked-in and were shown our room: The Charlotte Room, so quaint and comfy!  The stained glass window was just beautiful!

Then we did something crazy!  We changed into our running gear and went on a 2.5 mile run.  We were training for the 5K that we completed June 2nd and we knew we had to get some runs in on vacation!  It was great running around Southport because we were able to see a bit more of the town and it's about a mile from the yacht basin to the graveyard, so we made a big circle and ended back at the Inn!  After a shower, we enjoyed some wine and humus on the front porch while we decided where we should eat for dinner.

Relaxing on the front porch.

Then it was off to the Provision Company and we were not disappointed!  The wait was long, as it should have been since it's the best restaurant in town, and we enjoyed a drink on the docks while we waited! 

The food was delicious and we had a great view of the sunset as we finished our meal.  As we were leaving, we ran into the Innkeepers with some of their family and friends.  They confirmed that it was the best spot in town and we chatted a bit before wandering off.


Sunset from the Provision Company!  Beautiful!


It was a full moon, which in Southport means that the high tide comes in so far that it floods the gravel/sand road by all of the restaurants at the yacht basin.  We thought that was so cool!  So we went walking towards Fishy Fishy and the water to check it out!

Notice the "dock" that the restaurant puts out so folks can walk to dry land during a full moon!


We wound up walking past the filming location of Alex's General Store from the movie Safe Haven, book written by Nicholas Sparks.  Well..I'd read the book months before and really enjoyed it, like I do all of Nicholas Sparks' books.  I don't think it clicked with me that the movie was filmed in Southport until I started researching some restaurants before we left for the trip and found that some were featured in the movie.  I missed seeing the movie on Valentine's Day when it was released and it wasn't yet out on Redbox, BUT the dollar theater in Raleigh was showing it for the last time the night before our trip down to Southport and I jumped on it!  It was meant to be!  The movie didn't start until 10pm and we got out at midnight, but I'm so glad we saw it because it made our trip down so much more enjoyable.  All that's left of Alex's store is a picture of it framed on a wooden sign post.  We debated between ourselves if they had really burnt it down or if that was the magic of Hollywood!  We didn't find out until later on our trip, but the store was built there at the docks across from "Alex's house" and it was burnt down on the spot for the movie!  So crazy!

A picture of the store is all that's left in the spot where it stood while Safe Haven was filming!

After an eventful first day, we walked back to the Inn and turned in early to prepare for our slam packed 2nd day!