Breaking News! Special Alert! Story of the Year!!!

The place is freaking out! There is snow in the forecast for tomorrow and the news showed footage from 2004 when the last snow storm blew through and left enough snow to almost cover the grass. Several school districts have already closed school for tomorrow and the rest have delayed opening by at least 2 hours. Of course, it is 49 degrees as I write this and and while it is very cloudy, we've not seen even a rain drop much less a snow flake.

Fortunately, it's suppose to be 60 by Friday.

By the way, thanks for all the recent comments left on the blog. It is so good to know that we've been missed but not forgotten.

I Stand Corrected!

It was chilly today and so we went to the North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores with Joel and Kerry. It's a super aquarium and I learned a few important things. For example, I've been telling the world about my collection of miniature conch shells. I've literally crawled on the beach looking for new specimens. Guess what? They are welch shells, not conch shells. You have to go to Florida to find conch shells.

Oh yea, the star fish we found yesterday? It's not a star fish, it's a sea star. Since it is not actually a fish, you can't call the a star fish anymore. So I stand corrected.

It was a great day that ended with a long walk on the beach.

Fort Macon State Park

Kerry and Joel arrived at Emerald Isle last night and we spent the majority of the day at Ft. Macon State Park.  After touring the fort, we spent several hours walking one of the most beautiful beaches on the east coast.  We also had a very successful treasure hunt, finding one sand dollar and one star fish as well as hundreds of sea shells.

Enjoy the photos.  There are more in the slideshow in the sidebar.  If you click on the slideshow, you can hit the "Play Slideshow" button to see the photos in a larger format.

Busy,busy, busy.

Well Mary said that I'm not living up to my part of the blog, so...

Today while Mary was off taking sunrise photos I vacuumed the 1st floor of the beach house, took out the recyclables, and showered. When she got back from her photo shoot, we took a walk on the beach. While this might sound like good exercise, its not. WE have to stop every few feet and look for shells. Anyways after our beach "walk", I went to the driving range for about an hour. After that exhusting hour I returned to the beach house and sat on the porch overlooking the ocean and did my sudoku puzzles. Then I needed a break so...I read my book. And somewhere in between all of that I went to the post office. This not a typical day, sometimes, I play golf instead of going to the range. Now you can plainly see how busy I am, and why I don't have time to blog! Oh yeah, I opened a Facebook thing. It just goes to show if you want something done just give it to a busy person. Wish you were here, Jim

Thanks John & Gloria

The fist few days we were here, I'd pop up well before the crack of dawn and gather my tripod and camera bag and set up on the beach waiting to photograph a beautiful sunrise. All three times, the sky was overcast and the sunrises were ho-hum. I quickly learned to pop out of bed and look out for stars. If I'd see them, well, maybe there would be a great sunrise. This morning I saw stars!

John and Gloria are our landlords for the month of January and they invited me to use their dock at Cedar Point to catch some sunrise photos. I took them up on that opportunity this morning and hopefully that wasn't their dog making a bunch of racket this morning trying to scare me off the dock. If so, I'm so sorry.

Anyway, the view was spectacular and I hope you enjoy the photos.

My Shutter Finger is Rested

I actually took a whole day not shooting photos but made up for it today.  While Jim played golf this afternoon, I headed back to Cedar Point Tidewater Trail.  The entire 1.3 mile trail is simply lovely.  It was my second nature hike of the day and since tomorrow is a rain day, I will probably rest up.

Theodore Roosevelt Natural Area

Jim is not a huge fan of nature hikes but I did convince him to try the 1.2 mile hike at the Theodore Roosevelt State Natural Area. It was a hilly walk through forest, around a freshwater bog, over a salt marsh and finally to Bogue Sound.

Back to Beaufort

Jim played golf today and so I returned to Beaufort and you'll never guess what I did while I was there!  Took photos.  Enjoy!

Harkers Island

Yesterday, Jim and I took a ride to Harkers Island. It's not a tourist type spot at all. Instead, it is a very authentic water town with a strong tradition in boat building, decoy carving as well as hunting, fishing and crabbing.

The furthermost tip of the island is 4 miles across the sound to the Cape Lookout Lighthouse. Hopefully, we will get back there before our vacation ends and take the ferry ride to see the lighthouse up close and personal. For this trip, we simply toured the island and visited the National Park Service Visitors Center. We took a mile long nature hike, which is where most of the photos were taken, and toured the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum.

Wind Blown

The wind has been blowing all day today and tonight it is howling. In fact, gusts are around 60 and the cottage is swaying. Quiet day to day. We went to Jacksonville for lunch and then came home to catch up on laundry. I tried photographing the sand dunes but the sand was flying by smacking me in the face and so I only took a couple. But the sunset was unbelievable!

Also

What Mary forgot to mention in her post was that we found a wonderful Italian restaurant in Swansboro. The service was slow but the pizza was terrific. I can not wait to return and try the pasta dishes, everthing looked great! And on a very important note, I visited the Golfin Dolfin driving range, and that I'm playing golf this afternoon. Warm sunny weather, good food and golf...what more can I ask for?