Wandering Wells

10.27.2010

Wilmingwood

On our third day in North Carolina, we traveled 2.5 hours to Wilmington. I was the most excited about this trip, because I am a dedicated One Tree Hill fan and Wilmington is where the show is filmed. It was also the location of Dawson's Creek, Matlock, A Walk to Remember, Blue Velvet and many more films and TV shows, hence the name "Wilmingwood" or "Hollywood East."

We started our tour of the town by walking around the downtown neighborhoods. Literally every house had a plaque explaining who had built the house in the 1800s or earlier! Plus, they were just amazing to look at, including this Bed and Breakfast...

And the Beckett Mansion...

Tim and I decided to go on a Hollywood Set walking tour of the city. Our guide was the perfect mixture of Hollywood know-it-all and a complete hippie. It was quite interesting. Our first stop was the Wilmington courthouse, used in the opening and outside sequences for the last two seasons of Matlock. (This is for you Grandma M!)

We also passed a wall signed by many of the celebrities that have filmed in Wilmington. Including James Earl Jones, Joshua Jackson...

John Travolta...

Rue McClanahan, Carol Huston, Mandy Moore...

and Henry Winkler.

After our tour, we met Shawn and Jessica back at the courthouse and got ice cream, while we sat in the shade. (Did I mention the weather was in the mid-high 70s our whole trip? Way nicer than WA!)

We decided to head home, but I had to get some One Tree Hill pictures in. In season 1, Nathan and Haley had a date on this boardwalk...at this table (ok, maybe one close by)...yesssss!

This is Brooke's store, Clothes Over Bros, formally Karen's Cafe! It's hard to believe I've been watching this show for 8 seasons...

And finally, the grand daddy of them all, the River Court! Basically this location was the basis for the entire show, the place with the most major scenes and the place I was most excited to get a picture at! :-)

Oh, and these are the bleachers, which are used in the show, at the River Court. They are covered in graffiti from some rabid OTH fans. Don't worry, I didn't write on them. (I didn't have a pen!)

I suppose I should also post a picture of Wilmington's pride and joy, the USS North Carolina. It has been transformed into a floating museum and is at the top of all of the "must-see" lists for the area. We didn't get a chance to tour it, but it's not like Tim hasn't already spent plenty of time on a Navy vessel...

Real Raleigh

For our second day in The Tarheel State, we decided to check out the capital, Raleigh. The heart of downtown Raleigh contains, not only the Capital building, but also two large museums.

We decided to start at the North Carolina Museum of History, which is currently running a display on Thomas Day, a free black American furniture and cabinet maker from North Carolina. We had seen a piece of his work the day before (I forgot to mention this part) when we had toured the historic Stagville plantation in Durham.

After finishing up at the museum, we felt like it was time for lunch. On the recommendation of one of Shawn and Jessica's neighbors, we headed towards The Pit. We had to stop outside the Capital building for some pictures.

The Pit serves authentic North Carolina BBQ and since none of us had ever had authentic NC BBQ, we had to try it! And it sure was delicious...beef brisket, pulled pork, chopped BBQ, Mac and Cheese, hushpuppies, etc, etc.

After completely stuffing ourselves, it was time to head back to the heart of downtown and the other museum in the complex, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. Our first stop: The Whales!

There's a 20ft. waterfall...

A solarium of dinosaur bones, including a one-of-a-kind skeleton of an Acrocanthosaurus...

And, of course, we had to pose with some of the bones...

Even if it was unintentional. Sometimes those are the best...

Tarheelin' through Chapel Hill

We did eventually get to North Carolina for our trip to visit friends. That night is a bit of a blur, we were exhausted, but the next day is when the fun really started.

Tim and I were both excited to see Jessica's new campus, tour the Chapel Hill area and, most importantly, spend time with our friends. Our first stop was an amazing neighborhood near the UNC campus, which features a real castle!

Gimghoul Castle has quite a few stories associated with it, including rumors about secret societies and a being the home of the ghost of a man killed in a duel out front. Evidently there is still a rock covered in his blood on the grounds, but we didn't get out of the car to go and look.

These other houses are one that Tim and I loved! How much do you think we'd have to shell out to live here???

Our next stop was downtown Chapel Hill. Meal time was approaching, so after wandering down the main street a bit, we settled on a Chapel Hill establishment: the Carolina Coffee Shop.

Supposedly, this is the oldest restaurant in North Carolina.

After leaving, we headed towards campus and passed a large mural featuring scenes from UNC...

And we headed towards Carroll Hall, a communication building and home to Jessica's office.

It's good to know that even on the East Coast, WSU is represented...

Of course, we had to see Jessica's office and where her portrait is on display!

After hanging out for a few minutes (mainly spent raiding the candy jar), we continued our tour of the campus. Here's the main library on campus...

And then we headed towards the Pit, the Student Center and the Bookstore. Tim and I had to buy some Tarheel merchandise! Side note: This was my first piece of college apparel that wasn't from WSU...Nice job raising us as Cougs, Mom & Dad!

Our tour finished up at the Old Well, the iconic symbol of UNC, which is actually now a drinking fountain.

Seeing as how most of the campus was closed for Fall Break, we headed back to their house to make dinner and relax. Of course, we had to play with their new puppy Bella.

And Shawn showed off his mad pizza making skills.

It was delicious!

A lesson in travel...

set two, maybe even three or four, alarms.

Tim and I are currently sitting in the airport waiting for our flight to N.C.

This morning, I woke up to look at the clock and basically flipped into panic mode as it registered as 7:40 am. Our flight was at 8:40 am. We were out the door by 7:50. There was absolutely no way we were going to make it.

It's days like today where I wish that 1) we could magically appear in locations at the blink of an eye or 2) that flights were delayed more often. Our flight was on-time. There was no way we were going to make it.

I ended up just calling the airline and explaining the situation en route. They were gracious and understanding. There was one flight option available. Everything else, every flight, every transfer, was booked. Even the agent didn't understand that. It's a Wednesday in mid-October. It makes no sense.

We ended up taking our only guaranteed option. We could have tried our hand at the unreliable stand-by, which would have really only gotten us to Chicago, not our final destination.

They waived our admin fees because they felt bad. I'll let you guess why.

So now we wait and consider ourselves lucky that we were even able to get another flight, but we're also a little bit wiser about our future travel plans.

Still wandering,

A General Update

It seems to me that fall is already flying by and we're going right along with it! Evidently, busy weekends and crazy schedules have become our trademark as of late. What's been going on?

This past weekend was the final showings of "The Mouse that Roared" at BCT. I had a fabulous time and it's always great meeting new people. As a newcomer to this area, I really feel like this has been a blessing for me. Plus, I get to live out my childhood dreams of stardom! :-)
Actually, I'm even more excited because I was asked by the Head Costumer to walk in a vintage fashion show next weekend at a theatre fundraiser! Last night I got to try on some amazing (and some not so amazing) pieces. I'm wearing a vintage, and very delicate, dress from the 20s and a vintage day dress from the 40s. I absolutely love the 40s dress, so hopefully I'll be able to get a picture of my full outfit...fox fur stole and everything.

Last weekend was also the KCFC annual Fall Fair. I had to work the whole time at the membership and information tables, and I managed to convince Tim and my father-in-law to help out at parking. The day was quite a success for the co-op, we raised around $4000 and recruited 31 new members. We're now just 34 away from meeting our goal for 2010! The food was fantastic, we had some great craft vendors, pumpkins carvings and we seemed to get all positive reviews. It was a good jumping off point for me in my new position.

Tim has been exhausted lately from switching his work shift yet again, but he couldn't pass up the opportunity to play in the shipyard basketball league again. They managed to win their game, but just barely. In the last minute it was tied, Tim's team scored a jump shot, and in the last second the other team threw the ball from across the court and got it in! Luckily, for Tim, the guy shot it after the buzzer, so it didn't count! We were all in awe despite that fact. And in case you can't tell, he's #50 in the picture.

HAPPY 100!

I guess the only other exciting news, is that this is my 100th post! Yay!! Thanks for sticking around and reading about all our crazy adventures, mishaps, and general happenings. We've got some great things coming up, including a trip to North Carolina, a cruise to the Eastern Caribbean, some more condo updates, and a variety of other weekend trips and visitors. I hope you're as excited about the next 100 as I am!

Frisbee Golfing

Being open to new challenges, Tim and I went Frisbee Golfing with some friends today. I assume that many of you may not know what Frisbee Golf is, so I've put together a little visual guide to help explain it.

Step 1: Take one of these...