Category: Travel

Friends, Life, Travel

Bittersweet!

nainadg

 

Well this post would have been titled just Sweet, had it not been for a certain law enforcement officer being a jerk. But I will not ruin the ending.

Thursday night Me, J, Y and DS had a planning session at their house. We weren’t sure if we wanted to go at all this weekend because the weateher forecast said it would rain on saturday and that it would really cold on sunday. These did not sound like ideal conditions to go camping, so we decided to rent a camping cabin which is a very rustic cabin and just chance the weather.  Our destination was the village of Frisco on Hatteras Island in the Outer Banks. Our planning session lasted long into the night with us making extensive lists of stuff we were going to take with us.

Friday, we got a late start becasue DS ‘s meeting ran late , but we finally started our adventure. On the way, we nearly ran out of gas b/d J kept taking exits that did not have gas stations, but we did make it into Frisco without too much more adventure. It was weird to drive on the Outer Banks in the dark and we had no idea what the view around us was really like.  Our camping cabin turned out to be very cool, it had a two rustic platform beds and a table and an air conditioner. The air conditioner which seemed like a luxury at first was actually a necessity in the humid sea air.  That night, Y and I went to bed while the boys stayed up smoking cigars on the porch.

Saturday morning , I was the first one to wake up and I decided to explore the campground. It was a beautiful morning with warm temperatures and a pleasant sea breeze. Right as I stepped out of the cabin I reaized we were only a few feet away from the Pamlico sound . The sound is just beautiful and teeming with life, I saw a cottonmouth(water moccasin) and all sorts of really cool birds. After breakfast we wandered around Hatteras Island and checked out the talled Lighthouse in America -Hatteras Lighthouse and wandered along the beach. The thing that impressed me about Hatteras Island was the fact that most of tha seashore was protected and undeveloped, which is very unusual for coasts in the east. On the beach, we saw plovers, sea cucumbers, tons of crabs, skate eggs , different types of sea anemones and a horse shoe crabs. We also ate a delicious lunch of She Crab soup and calamari and Y made us a special mexican beer cocktail.

Saturday afternoon we checked out the little villages on the island and went to the Pea Island Wildlife refuge. We saw different species of turtles and some river otters  and also some ospreys. That night we made a yummy camp dinner of steak and potatoes and chilled on our porch.

Sunday, the weather did indeed get really bad. We spent the morning exploring the southern end of Hatteras Island and then headed north to Kitty Hawk and Kill Devils Hills. At Kitty Hawk we checked out the the famous Wright Brothers memorial and saw the spot where they launched into flight for the first time. It was really neat to see  how scientific they were in constructing their glider and their flyer.

The weather was getting really bad now, so we just grabbed lunch at the Pier House restaurant of fresh seafood and Bloody Marys and headed back home. On the way….here comes the bitter part… we passed a cop who had pulled soemone over and J had to veer out into oncoming traffic to not run into him and we nearly ran into the oncoming car. But a few miles later the same cop pulled us over because we had not pulled into the other lane far enough and we were apparently “endangering the cops life” according to NC law. So J got a ticket for $ 36o  and our great trip had to end on a sour note.

Despite the ticket, I had a great beach weekend and it was fun to celebrate the end of my semester by a quick getaway.

Life, Love, Travel

Boone NC

nainadg

J and I went to Boone last week for a mini getaway. It was really fun to be taking a sort of impromptu trip. We spend all day tuesday exploring the area and hiking around. We did a killer hike called Linville Gorge and the river at the bottom of the gorge was beautiful. We also drove on the Blue Ridge Parkway for a bit and of course we managed to get lost. That night we went swimming and hot tubbing and it felt so good after our day of hiking.

The next day, we went on another little hike around a lake and explored some more.  J had to go to his conference in the afternoon, so I just relaxed and in the evening J played with his band- Awake Behaving Animals. It was a really cool show and I think everyone there had a really good time. I was so proud of J and I was really excited to be the hot drummers fiancee.

Travel

Cruisin’

nainadg

Got back into town last night. Sooo tired. Quick recap:

Friday:

J and I made it to Ft.Lauderdale, after nearly missing our flight. It was close but we were the last people on the plane and strangely, the seats assigned to us were also the very last row on the plane.I guess Delta knows its passengers

At Ft. Lauderdale we met up with K and JC and took a cab to the cruise. It took forever to make our way through the lines and actually get on the damn boat, but I guess its just normal regulations for cruising. We had lunch and found our cabin and realized we had BUNK BEDS.

Friday night, we hung out on the deck, and the bar and since both parties were fairly tired, we didn’t party too hardy after Dinner. We did see the show revue, where K and I cracked up everytime the male dancers would come out in their little outfits.

Saturday:

We docked at Nassau and took the Sea Captain out to the ocean for some snorkeling. There were some tense moments for me since I ‘m not the strongest swimmer and being in the open sea was a little nerve wracking, but hey, I made it.

After snorkeling we went to the Blue Lagoon Island and had lunch and bought some stuff from the gift shop and relaxed by the lagoon. JC and K left at 2 but J and I hung around and explored the island.

Made it back to the Dock with 1/2 and hour to spare, so we bought some conchs and duty free liquor! Whoooo!!

Sat night, all of us got crazy drunk and J, JC and I did Karaoke. JC was the best , followed by me and then J. J and I were kinda upset with each other, its too bad it happened over vacation, but we made up so it wasn’t terrible.

Sunday morning, We left the boat, rented a car and drove along the coast up to Orlando. We stopped at the Cape Canaveral National sea Shore to check out some alligators(1) and Manatees(0) but we did see some really cool herons, ospreys, pelicans , scrub jays etc. JC and K also saw a bobcat. In orlando, that night, we just hung around the hot tub and ate Pizza

Monday, We drove to St. Pete’s to the Salvador Dali museum and hung out in their cute little downtown. JC and Kim took us to the airport straight after and we hung out at bar there till it was time for our flight to leave and that was the end of the vacay.

Good Drunken times!WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Life, Travel

….And back to reality

nainadg

Wow! So much craziness and just in the 4-5 days that I have been back.

Africa was incredible, I am going to have to do a long detailed log/post about it which is still in the works, will probably be about 2 weeks, till I can put everything online. But I really had a great time.

First reunion with J was great on wed afternoon at the airport. Seeing him, after two weeks almost made me weak, it really hit me, how much I had missed him. All day wed was feverish talking, sleeping and some other stuff that I am not going to share with anyone 😉

Thursday, I returned to work and everything seemed like it had gone smoothly, other than one irate client, but thats just how it goes sometimes. Friday and Saturday, were crazy good times, missed J at the parties, and found out all sorts of weird info about one of his coworkers, who was hell bent on hooking up with him, but thankfully nothing happened. I love my b.f, he is the best.

I did drunk dial him at 5 in the morning on sun and rambled on about my love for him, thankfully he found it sweet. Sun, I slept in and picked up J and this time at the airport he looked even better……..yum!!! God I am so shallow, but since yesterday, I haven’t been able to stop staring at him and thinking only very very bad thoughts…..is it obvious to everyone that I am completely consumed by lust.

Truth be told, I am really happy to be back, I just want life to be normal , atleast till the end of the year, no drama, no controversies, just a staid , routine.

Bad thing I did this weekend: Smoked a lot, too ashamed to even write down how much.
Good thing I did this weekend: Stopped eating so freaking much.

Travel

The Best Weekend!

nainadg

Friday:

Friday afternoon, J and I packed up our gear and Laylz into the Honda and drove off to explore the southern coast of North Carolina. THe weather was rainy and windy and we hit rush hour traffic through downtown Raleigh and Garner. Even though we started out in high spirits, it soon lagged by the time we were done fighting traffic and out of the city. We decided to stop at a gas station and get a drink and get some caffeine. We took an exit for Newton’s Grove and the sign by the off ramp said the station was .5 miles away. We kept driving, only to discover we were in the middle of a hickville swamp. The “town” was basically a roundabout and half the stores were boarded up with various broken machines and used furniture on their porch. The Hardees in town took atleast 15 mins to get us our order of 3 piece chicken strips and 2 cokes.

Anyway, after a good buzz from the caffeine we continued on our way to Wilmington North Carolina. We got into Wilmington around 7ish and found our hotel pretty easily, since it was on the main road. It was already dark and raining consistently and when we had finally settled into the hotel room, we worried about what we would do with Layla that night. The plan was to have an old fashioned night out on town – Dinner and then going bar hopping and getting roaring drunk in Wilmington’s historic riverwalk. Since we didn’t know how Layla would do with being left alone in an unfamiliar hotel room for that long we decided to go to dinner at a restaurant closeby and comeback and check on her progress. We went to dinner to Sticky Fingers a restaurant specializing in southern style ribs. I am not a big ribs person,but it seemed to fit the mood and locale. We ordered a pitcher of Bud , some spinach dip and decided to share their sampler platter. The Sampler platter had Memphis Dry, Memphis Wet , Carolina Sweet and Habanero Hot. I think my favorites were Memphis dry and Habanero Hot.

After dinner, we checked up on Layla and headed to historic downtown wilmington, it was raining even harder now, so we took the first available parking spot and decided to just find one great bar and hang out there all night instead of running around in the rain. We went to Rum Runners, a tropical themed duelling piano bar and did exactly what we had planned- Got really drunk!! The performers were funny and J and I had fun watching the other drunk people in the bar. We did manage to make it back to the hotel without too much drama.

Saturday:

I was woken up by a knock on the door saying housekeeping and was surprised and went back right back to sleep, thinking it was some kind of mistake, especially since the clock in the room said 9:30 and we didn’t have to check out till 11. I was woken up again by the phone ringing, where front desk very politely that I needed to check out by 12:00 if i didn’t want to pay for another night. Confused and groggy ,I asked him what time it was , and he replied, 11:40. I guess there had been a power outtage the night before and the clock had slowed down, because the clock in the room said 10:45. Anyway we hurried and packed and managed to finally get our act together and check out of the room. Since it was already noon , we decided to grab some fast food for lunch and buy some necessities at target and headed out for Carolina Beach which is 30 mins from Wilmington. We had hoped to hang around wilmington and explore Wrightsville Beach (5 mins from wilmington) in the morning, but those plans were scrapped.

The drive to Carolina Beach was really pleasant and relaxed and we got to drive over the intercoastal waterway for a couple of minutes before we made it to Carolina Beach. We found Carolina Beach state park and picked out a camping site and decided to not waste anymore of the afternoon and go straight to the Beach. It was a great afternoon, the only drawback was that it was really windy and we kept getting pelted by sand, so we decided to walk inside of town instead of on the beach. We explored the cute little beach town and did a little shopping in the surf shops. We also got some awesome Pizza at Michelangelos pizza parlour and homemade tiramisu.

We headed back to the campground and found out that the gates of the campground closed at 8:00 so we couldn’t really go to the cute bars in town or eat out, since it was 6:00 and we were really full from Pizza. We decided we would just make a fire and cook some simple Brats and drink beer around our fire. We bought firewood at the marina and headed to food lion to get supplies. Right before entering Food Lion we could smell delicious chinese food so, we did a last minute change of plans and ate at the chinese restaurant. After buying beer, we headed back to the campsite to settle in for the night and get our fire going,but we were in for a nasty surprise. J and I have both gone camping since we were itty bitty kids and know how to make fires and it took us three tries and loads of kindling and we still couldn’t get the fire going. The problem we discovered on our third and final try was the logs were wet and every time we would get it going, all this water would seep out of the logs and put out the fire. We gave up in disgust and took a walk around the campground and looked at the stars and just went to bed. We sure were glad we had decided to go with chinese food, otherwise we would have had to go to bed hungry.

Sunday:

Sunday morning we were able to get our lazy asses out of bed around 9:30, but since it was daylight savings time, it was already 10:30. We hung around the campsite for a while and packed up all our belongings and headed to Kure Beach. Kure Beach is less popular than Carolina Beach and more locals go there. We found free parking and the Beach was almost deserted, so it was like having our own private beach. After playing around for a while we got hungry and decided to get lunch. While we were wondering which restaurant to go to, a guy going to the Old Pier House Restaurant walked by and commented that “They have good food in there”. So we decided to give it a try. It was a tiny little room and it was packed!!! And since most people in there knew each other we figured they were locals. We ordered thier variety platter, which had Flounder, Fried Shrimp, Clam Strips and Deviled Crabs.It also came with Fries , Hush Puppies and Coleslaw. I think we finished everything other than the hush puppies. Since we were so full, we decided to take a little walk on the pier and walk off all that delicious food.

Afterwards, we headed back to the State Park and decided to the Venus Fly Trap Trail. Carnivorous plants are the specialty of the park, because of the dry soil plants have to supplement their nutrition with insects. Most of the plants weren’t in bloom yet, so we walked around looking for Venus Fly Trap. But we couldn’t see any till a nice old couple showed some to us. We kept looking to find some of our own, but we didn’t see anymore. It was only 3:00 and we didn’t feel like going home yet. So we drove to the Marina and walked along the Sugarloaf Trail, which follows the banks of the Cape Fear River and the Wetlands around it. It was absolutel beautiful. Finally around 4:15 we called it good and decided to head home.

It was a really great vacation. I think Kure Beach is one of my favorite places , and J and I are planning to go back in a month and camp again. I think Kure Beach is going to be our little spot where we keep exploring it, till we know every thing about it.

Kure Beach Rules!!!