Carolina Beach, North Carolina

It was such a pretty day yesterday. We had grocery shopping to do. Amazingly, we hadn't been to the grocery store since last Saturday...a full week! It must be some kind of world record. Anyway...knowing that was the only thing on the agenda, I politely suggested that we might visit a quilt shop. Of course, Mike was gung ho. We hadn't been to a quilt shop in at least a week, and he loves a good quilt shop. I'm kidding, of course. Actually, he's a good sport about the quilt shops, but if I decided to take up a hobby of, say, remote control airplanes, I'm sure he'd prefer it. But then who would make the quilts he enjoys for his naps? So...there you go. Quilting and quilt shops it is.

Before we left, I finished off the first of nine blocks for the Heart & Home Blackwork quilt.

These blocks are very densely stitched. This one is just the beginning, and there's even more stitching in the blocks yet to come. For now, I'll get to work on the last of the Bag Ladies. The last bag lady is Earlene. She's ready to go, and I'll get a start on her a little later.

If you're stitching along with us, know that the November linky party goes live on Thursday.

You don't have to finish your bag lady to link up, so be ready. After this, there's only one month left in the stitch-along, and then the party's over.

With my morning stitching done, we took off for the quilt shop. I'll tell you about that in a separate post. I found some cute fabrics there. The quilt shop was in Carolina Beach...down the road from Wilmington...and right beside the ocean. By the time I left the doors of the quilt shop, it was time for lunch.

The town of Carolina Beach has its parking meters shut down for the season. For all we've missed because of things being shut down for the season, it seemed poetic justice to find something beneficial about being off-season travelers.

We'd done our North Carolina barbecue the day before, and we were in the mood for seafood. In particular, I wanted something with blue crab. We ended up at this place.

They had all sorts of things on their menu. Mike chose the Shrimp Po Boy:

As for me...the blue crab cake sandwich.

Mine was pan fried, but also blackened. By that I mean it was rather spicy...but not too much. Also, my favorite sweet potato fries. After pigging those down, we realized we were within walking distance of the beach. Our truck was parked where I stood in the image below. Down past those buildings was the Atlantic Ocean.

There were some shops along the way.

Eventually, we came to a nice boardwalk that stretched in both directions.

It was enticing, but we were really in the mood for sun, sand, and waves.

We crossed over that bridge and there we were. Looking left, it extended as far as the eye could see.

Looking right...same thing, although looking right I was looking directly into the sun.

There were folks fishing and walking, building sandcastles, burying one another in the sand. We just plopped down in the sand to watch. Behind us beach grass was growing and little green succulents of some kind.

Our shadow selves could hardly believe what a beautiful day it was.

As we sat there, we saw a school porpoises swim by. These women saw them too.

There were surfers in the water there. I can imagine seeing that dorsal fin swimming toward you would be quite a thrill.

Also, we were mesmerized by the flight of these pelicans. They flew in perfect formation and at equal distances apart. They flew about a foot above the water until a wave broke, and then they were airborne again.

Then they'd catch another updraft and swoop down next to the surface of the water again.

It was like watching bird ballet.

We stayed there for approximately a half hour, but we still hadn't done our grocery shopping and duty was calling.

Today we're heading north again. It's a pretty good distance from here to Kitty Hawk and the Outer Banks, and so we'll make the trip in two days. Our plan for tonight is to stay in a Walmart parking lot, then reach Kitty Hawk tomorrow.