Vacation Continued

Day 6

Wednesday was the day we all went on our field trips. The 1st stop we made to was Fort Fisher to visit the North Carolina Aquarium. We've gone many times to the one up in Pine Knolls Shores, but we had not been to this one.
























I love this picture of my boys. This is typical of them.



















The boys really enjoyed this place. We spent quite a bit of time there. Aaron's blog has more
pictures, so check it out.






















Later we headed for the ferry to cross over visit Southport. Now that was a relaxing trip. You just cannot be in a hurry if you are going to take the ferry.





















Southport is one of those quaint little towns on the shore with street names like Pebble Lane, Atlantic Avenue, Captains Drive, & N. Lord Street. How about that name! They have beautiful little cottages that we love to check out.



















The town isn't very big but it does have a small Maritime Museum that we made a point to visit.



















After our visit there, we went on up to Wilmington. We went down into the historic district along the water front. First, we found a shop for coffee (some of us got a coffee dessert) & I got a cone at another shop. This part of the city is so scenic. I love the water front view & all the little shoppes all along the river.















Some day it would be neat to stay at one of the condos right on the river & eat at any of the cozy restaurants or cafes there.


























Then we went uptown to a wonderful "mall" of sorts full of quaint little shoppes & a restaurant. The wonderful thing about it is that it is kind of a maze. You go in one entrance & come out in many different places. This place was once The Cotton Exchange. They took 8 great old buildings where cotton was brought in by paddle boats & exported. You can read about it on www.shopcottonexchange.com/history.asp .





This was one entrance that spilled out into a courtyard of many more shoppes & a restaurant. Here are Dave & Andrew checking out what's in the window.






This is looking down at the restaurantt in the courtyard area.











When I turned around, I took this picture. I felt like I was back in time.















When you went all the way through, you came out onto the lower street that had their own set of shoppes.











You could go back up through again by another entrance with another hall of stores. Now this hallway smelled soooo good! At it's end, back up on the street we began with, was a great coffee shop. The aroma just saturated every corner of the hall tempting you to come in & imbibe.



Afterwards, since traffic was so bad at rush hour, we just tooled around & looked at all the beautiful homes in the area making our way up to Sticky Fingers for dinner. Sticky Fingers BBQ is a great rib joint that we finished the day with. It was a full day & we were glad when we got back to our beach house.