Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina

I said I would go back to Sweet and Savory and I meant it. On our way to the beach we stopped for breakfast. My ham, egg, havarti, pico, and avocado on toast left just enamored with the place as yesterday, though I think LVL’s egg and cheese croissant was a bit dry and boring. Also, our lemon “pocket” was nowhere near as good as the bear claw. Details, details.

From there to the beach and the beating hot sun. We stopped at beach access #13 and LVL paid for parking by phone as I found us a spot between two existing sun shades and set up our half-tent shade thing. Not surprisingly, the beach itself has a different look than either California or Hawaii. There are brown and yellow reeds and tufts of crab grass here rather than palm or coconut trees like out west. No shade, anywhere.

The sand here is as fine as sugar or salt, and sticks immediately to sunscreened arms, legs, and faces. Definitely not a pleasant feeling. We dealt with it, and hunkered in our half-tent, reading and chilling, while the wind whipped around us. Lots of people on the long, wide beach, but it never felt crowded. Great fun watching everyone soak up the sun and frolic in the water, especially the young parents and kids.

The water here is much warmer than in Hawaii, considerably saltier, and not quite as good for body surfing, swimming, or chilling. But nothing (in my humble, born-and-raised-there view) quite is. Still, Wrightsville Beach is great, and just the stuff I see as part of my own family vacations for the foreseeable future. How great it would be to set up camp in a shore-side house for a week and succumb to salt air and fine grain sand in everything?

One small point of caution/reservation to mention before I go booking that house: A few minutes into our second dip in the water I spotted a box jellyfish (about 6” in diameter) floating just below the surface of the water. Not something either of us wanted to deal with, so we got out. No harm, no foul, but a good signal to pack up and move along.

Hot, sweaty, salty, we couldn’t resist a gooey drink atop one of the few piers on the beach, so we stopped to at the Oceanic for a very, very windy but scenic slushy something or other: strawberry daiquiri for LVL and a Miami Vice (half strawberry d, half pina colada; fully awesome) for me. Add in a few California rolls and some fine grade summer tour reminiscing, and we were pretty happy. Loved the old pics of Wrightsville Beach lining the walls of the restaurant, especially the one from 1930 showing a 50 ton sperm whale washed ashore, with several young guys in funny hats, sport coats and other period era appropriates, standing atop the beast. Great, great picture.

Still not yet entirely gorged/overindulged/whatever, we circle around town a bit and then head to Kohl’s for some frozen custard and a milkshake. A fun, if entirely unnecessary stop, as was our beach clothes/knick knacks run at Wings, a monstrosity of a tackyshop around the corner (picture the juiced up Mark McGwire of ABC stores). We stocked up on all the Wrightsville Beach logo’d must haves: t-shirts, magnets, postcards, and more.