The Trip That Wasn’t

August 21, 2009

There were a few reasons for choosing to go down to Ocracoke/Wilmington for our anniversary trip. We ended up with the Outer Banks because that’s where we got married 2 years ago and Ocracoke b/c we’ve always wanted to stay there. I’ve always wanted to see Portsmouth Island so we decided to do the ATV tour while we were there. The second reason is that I’ve always wanted to see Cape Lookout in person, it’s been the lighthouse that I’ve wanted to see since I first took a trip to the Outer Banks. My parents always tried in vain to explain that it was pretty far away but I insisted it’s “just right there” ahh the days of not knowing how far things really WERE from point a to b thanks to Mapquest. So I figured while we were there we could go see Cape Lookout as well, then hit Wilmington to visit Chris’s uncle for a few days before coming home.

Then the rain came and ruined my vacation! When I say rain, I mean 10 inches in a day rain in the area – MONSOON rain! Our ATV tour got canceled and as soon as we got to the mainland from the ferry well… see for yourself.

This is the sight that greeted us when we got to Cedar Island from Ocracoke. About 3 minutes later the skies opened and it was pretty scary for a bit. The system stalled right over Cape Lookout and Harkers Island – where you take the ferry to Cape Lookout so it was yet another thing that was a ‘must do’ that wasn’t. Someday… someday!

So what did we do instead? We swung though Emerald Isle on the way to visit Chris’s nieces that were vacationing with their mom and visited for a bit before heading down to Wilmington. Of course in Emerald Isle – just a few miles south of Cape Lookout – there wasn’t a drop of rain in sight. I have the BEST luck! 🙂

We make it to our hotel on Wrightsville Beach and dropped our gear and went straight to the beach. I searched for sea glass, some shells and of course took some pics.