We Took A Little Vacay...(Part I)

Last week, The Hubs & I took a much needed vacation (and therefore....no cooking & no blogging). We drove over 1,200 miles and visited over 10 cities! It was a long, but wonderful trip. Want to know where we went? I thought you might. Here we go...

Day 1:

We started by flying into Greensboro, NC and heading to Durham where The Hubs' trip could have ended and he would have been a happy man. We got to tour this place...


And even go down on...

For those who don't know, The Hubs is a HUGE Duke basketball fan. He's always dreamed of visiting Cameron Indoor Stadium and he finally got to. (If only there had been a game going on...). K Academy was in session, so we got to see Coach K & several former players. I may or may not have almost asked Grant Hill to take our picture before realizing who it was. Needless to say, he was a happy, happy man.

We also toured the beautiful Duke Gardens...


And caught a Durham Bulls game...


Day 2:

We took another trip over to Cameron Indoor to tour the Duke Basketball Museum...


And the rest of the Duke Campus, including the beautiful Duke Chapel.




We then drove to Raleigh where we visited the Natural Science Museum, had a wonderful lunch at a little brewery/pub (more on that in another post) and visited the most AMAZING farmers market. That evening, we drove east to the quaint town of New Bern to stay the night. Our day ended with a perfect dinner on the water (more on that later, too).

Day 3:

We woke up early to make the drive to Cedar Island where we were to catch the 10:00 ferry to Ocracoke Island in the Outer Banks. The drive took a lot longer than we anticipated and we pulled up to the ferry landing 5 minutes before departure. Whew! We spent the 2.5 hr ferry ride napping, snacking & watching for dolphins.


We arrived in Ocracoke around lunch time and grabbed a quick bite to eat before checking out our first lighthouse...


We also made our first beach stop.


We spent the rest of our day driving north up the islands, making stops along the way at the Hatteras Lighthouse...


the house from "Nights in Rodanthe" - (I heart Nicholas Sparks)...


and the Bodie Lighthouse...


By the time we made it to our hotel in Duck, we were exhausted. We decided to order room service (fish & chips - yum!) and spend the evening on our balcony instead.


To Be Continued...