Drive: Chapel Hill to Kure Beach, NC (174 miles)
Total Miles: 2354
I woke up and drove back to the beach. I left a little later than I was planning, and I got there after breakfast. We went out to the beach and played in the water. I tried Peter’s new skim board and fell smack on my back. That wasn’t even the one that hurt the most. It was actually the first one.
Skim board technique requires you to throw the flat board down in front of you to get it moving. Once it is moving, you need to jump on it to keep it moving. The first time I tried, only one leg got on and the other stayed in place, stretching it out. That hurt a lot.
A couple of hours on the beach wore out everyone. We all took naps in the afternoon, except Grace who watched Star Wars (Episode 4: A New Hope). In the late afternoon we visited the NC Aquarium, just down the road. Our favorite exhibits are the touch pool, the 285,000-gallon tank with multiple views in (where the lemon sharks and the sting rays swim with more than 450 other fish), and the storm surge marker (showing Hurricane Hazel with a surge 17 feet above sea level).
A fish just kissed Grace’s finger in the Aquarium touch pool
We had a busy evening. We had dinner at the Cottage, a real restaurant on the island. Meg had tuna, I had crab cakes, Grace had lamb lollipops and Peter had low country fried chicken. Everything was delicious. We walked down the street to the boardwalk and got some fudge for dessert. We also played putt putt on the boardwalk. All four of us got holes-in-one, and Peter got 3 in a row.
During the round of golf, the fireworks started. Every Thursday in the summer, they have fireworks. It was a pleasant evening, made more special by the bursts of color in the air. The kids were happy when the fireworks were over, as they wanted to finish playing mini-golf.
