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This is the official report of my family and me as we return from the beach and reflect upon our first-time family vacation that did not consist of going camping, like we do every Summer. We chose the beach because neither kid had yet seen the ocean, and MaryBeth has been excelling in her swimming lessons to the point that we knew she would not be afraid of the ocean.
Saturday morning, we left Winston-Salem and headed to my sister-in-law's to stay with her, who is about one hour from Morehead City/Atlantic Beach. We avoided our first choice beach of Carolina Beach because I heard there was a high jellyfish population these past weeks. We stayed at my sis-in-law's house until Monday morning (as we're religious enough to not go vacationing on a Sunday) and the first thing we do is go over the long bridge that connects the mainland to the outer banks. We had lunch, found our appartment, and shopped for some items we needed. We stayed at a Comfort Inn, and had a discount coupon I found online at some website that I do not recall right now and by the time we were set in, it was time for dinner. Our air conditioning was acting wierd, so on the way out I asked maintenance to check it for us while we were gone. When we returned, I found the bathroom light on and a half-roll of toilet paper stuffed into the toilet. I knew that none of the kids had even done that because I had been the last in there, so I went down to the front desk and complained. The manager was sure that it had not been the worker, since she had known him for so many years and nobody else had ever had a problem after one of his visits, so to avoid trouble they just moved our room and gave us an additional discount besides the one we already had.
The next morning, we head to the beach early after our breakfast and take some pics, do some boarding, and playing in the sand. MaryBeth and Caroline loved the beach, but MaryBeth detests the smell and particularly the taste of the ocean. She was ready to get out as soon as she wiped out when I was helping her get on the boogie board.
We looked for shells for MaryBeth in the afternoon, and I found some interesting rocks, including a black shark's tooth that at first to me just appeared to be an odd-shaped rock. Its my personal prize from the trip.
There is not much else to say about that day except that we went to dinner at what was supposed to be a highly recommended place called the Channel Marker, but we had some trouble there. They got both our orders wrong, had no Sierra Mist, and I had eaten a better Lobster someplace else back here in Winston-Salem. They also over-peppered the "catch of the day".
That night, it was going to storm, but we still had some time. I went out to fly a kite on the beach and never had seen a kite go so high. I ran out of string and the kite was still pulling up at an amazing pace. Suddenly, the kite did a sommersalt twice after about 10 minutes of being up there and dive-bombed a two-story restaurant that happened to be closed, getting stuck on some furniture that was on their rooftop dining area. I could not get it down and the storm was getting close. Then a guy showed up and said he'd get it and then jumped up the side of the building and scaled his way over to the kite and released it. Yay for super-hero strangers! I figured he wanted something in return but he was just doing a nice deed.
On Wednesday, we went back to the beach to play just a bit more, and walk out on the pier. We headed back and packed at the hotel and was out by 11am, and on our way back to my sis-in-law's to rest up an hour before the remainder of the trip home.
Some photos will be forthcoming.
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