NC

This was mostly written on a flight back from the east coast, North Carolina to be exact. We spent three days in the Chapel Hill area with a brief visit to the beach!

I shivered while waiting for the airport shuttle on Thursday morning because I was wearing open-toed shoes and the temperature had dropped abruptly the night before. The next day I found myself on the beach in Fort Fisher, North Carolina.  As we frolicked in the water and walked on the beach, it was 33 degrees and snowing in Denver…

We had a lovely time watching the butterflies flutter along the coast and finding burrowing creatures in the sand and taking in the salty air. I even braved the sea monsters and got in the ocean. It was somewhat nostalgic for Seth as he fondly recalled beach vacations with the family in his younger days. In fact, while going through the closet in the bedroom in which he grew up, we found some photos of him at the beach:

While in the area we visited the North Carolina Aquarium, which was cute but not super impressive. We did get a photo with the jaws of a megalodon – some kind of big, scary prehistoric creature.

The remaining two days were filled with strolling. We strolled around the Durham farmer’s market and craft market eating empanadas, fresh donuts and cinnamon buns, drinking coffee.

There was yet more strolling around the Duke University campus where we found huge tree fungus growing at the foot of a tree as opposed to on the tree higher up where you normally find it:

We strolled around Chapel Hill’s Franklin Street eating cupcakes and drinking yet more coffee. There were also cocktails at The Crunkleton and dinner at Mint, an amazingly tasty Indian restaurant.

We had brunch and dinner with friends and hung out with Seth’s parents and observed the masses of college students that were everywhere. I even got to eat at Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen! It has no website and is a drive thru only biscuit place that was Seth’s inspiration from what I understand. Of course, Seth’s biscuits are *way* better…

All in all, it was a good introduction to North Carolina and I imagine we’ll head that way again sometime in the future.