Going North, Up The Coastal Highway

Wilmington homes exploding with color

By the end of April, the Spring foliage is in full bloom here in The South. Heading north from Charleston, we wind up US 17, on track for our destination for this segment of the adventure, The Outer Banks. Once leaving Mount Pleasant, there is a lot of wide open road along the seacoast until you reach the quaint little seaport of Georgetown, North Carolina. More beautiful tree lined and flower lined streets fill this historic place. As we have found, there was a lot of 18th and 19th century activity in the area. Our main reason for pulling off the road here, as you might guess, was to visit the original location of an area bakery (maybe we should think about renaming this blog..."Harvey and Smarty's Bakery Stops!") that we grew to love in Mount Pleasant, Kudzu http://www.kudzubakery.com/.

Kudzu Bakery in Georgetown

As usual, we just stumbled on it while shopping in the area. From the minute we walked in we knew it was the real deal. Their baked goods and breads are totally scratch, and one's more amazing than the next. We loaded up with goodies and kept heading up the road, past Pawley's Island (Yep! There really is a place named after the famous hammocks...or is it the other way around?), and then to the southern part of the Myrtle Beach area, Murrells Inlet and then Surfside Beach. Myrtle Beach surprised us a little. We expected an old, worn looking area with lots of t-shirt shops. There is that, up the road from the main, newer area of the beach, but this newer area is what we saw first. There are high rise hotels and condos, nice stores and restaurants, and pretty parks and beach areas. It's easy to see why people, especially from the Eastern half of the country flock here. The older, t-shirt and surf shop part didn't show itself until the next morning as we started heading towards North Myrtle Beach. If you go for that kind of place, there is about a five mile strip of it there. Have fun!  We keep rolling up Highway 17 and land in Leland, NC, just a few miles from downtown Wilmington. It's raining, so we pull in to a new, nice looking Wal Mart lot in this newer area, and unhook Smarty to see what it's like here. We stayed seven nights right in the Wal Mart lot, using our fresh water tanks and all the solar electricity we could absorb to keep the house running. All systems worked perfectly, and we could have even stretched it if we needed. How is it to live in a Wal Mart lot for a week? Interesting!

H2 and friend at Wally World

There's a Carolina chain of good coffee places in the area called Port City Java http://www.portcityjava.com/ We packed up our briefcases in the morning and used their neat little shop, located a couple of blocks from our (Wal Mart) home and worked during the day and explored at night.
 The magnificent Magnolias and Crepe Myrtles are coming alive and especially the Azaleas. Almost every town in The Carolinas has an Azalea Festival, but the Granddaddy of them all is the one in Wilmington http://www.ncazaleafestival.org/. No kidding, this is to Wilmington what Mardi Gras is to New Orleans or Mobile! And it's no wonder. This town literally explodes with color at this time each year. It is the quintessential South, and everyone should be lucky enough to experience it at least once. Wilmington is an understated city. It's population is a little over 100,000, but the greater area is about 250,000. Ever heard of Cape Fear? This is the center for the area known as Cape Fear (named after the river). In other words, this is not really a "cape" like Hatteras, it's an entire region. The movie(s) made the name famous, but this place has lots more to offer than a Hollywood story. First, the city is a living museum, much like Savannah and Charleston. It has deep roots in ship building, and the marine history is everywhere you look. Many of the buildings date back to the early 1700's!

Wilmington River Walk Downtown

Another interesting tidbit about Wilmington is that it's a relatively large movie and tv production town. In fact, the last blockbuster Iron Man 3 movie was done here. We explored the surrounding areas too, like Southport, another historic sea town a few miles drive...to the south of Wilmington. More historic homes with plaques dating them all the way back to Pre Revolutionary War times, more quaint shops, and a very pretty waterfront park and pier. The beaches nearby are cities in their own right, especially Wrightsville and Carolina Beach. Mary Ann had a fun surprise too. Her friend and boss when she was in the apparel business, Joe, surfaced! She had been trying to reach him, knowing that he must still live in the Myrtle Beach area, where he's originally from, and she had no luck...until a phone call reunited them finally. He was indeed still in Myrtle Beach and agreed to drive up, since we were already in Wilmington. We had a great dinner together in downtown, and the two old friends got to do some catching up! We did finally leave our Wal Mart home, and continued to dead head it towards The Outer Banks. Our landing spot, next, takes us to the Beaufort, Moorhead City, Newport area (go to your map to pinpoint us). From there as base camp, by ferry and Smarty, to legendary ports off the coast, like Ocracoke, Cape Hatteras, and finally Kitty Hawk.

The pier at the waterfront in Southport