Day Trip to Wilmington, NC

Like many Americans, we enjoyed the long Memorial Day weekend at the beach… well about 30 mins of our long weekend at the beach. With the purchase of our zoo membership, we also get into the NC Aquariums for free. So on Saturday, we took a 2-hour road trip to the NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher. I was surprised that the traffic to the beach was fairly light, I guess everyone drove down on Friday.

Anyway, we had a great time at the aquarium and only left because everyone was getting hungry. The plan was to eat lunch across the way at the Fort Fisher Recreational Park and Beach access. However, the rain clouds rolled in right as we got out to eat lunch. As it sprinkled on our picnic table we quickly ate our lunch. The rain briefly stopped so we decided to take the boys to at least see the ocean. The waves were really rough and the clouds were dark but we promised them the beach. We spent about 20 minutes on the beach before the rain started up again, but not before everyone got sufficiently sandy.

Since our beach trip was a bust we decided to head north to Wilmington where we just missed the rain. We stopped to get ice cream at Kilwins and then walked along the riverfront.

The boys were so awesome the whole day and we all had a great day trip to the beach despite not actually being on the beach that long. Of course, all of their good behavior wore off just as we started to drive home. No one napped, not even Abel. Everyone was cranky but we made it home in time for dinner and bed. It was a pretty great day. The boys have already requested to go back to the beach on a day when we can actually play in the water and sand.