In September, we made our way to the Carolinas to visit some friends. After a 3 stop flight, we met up with friends from Raleigh and Kansas City, and drove to Emerald Isle – a beach community 2 hours from Raleigh (just before the famed Outer Banks). It was extremely beautiful and quiet, we had the beach mostly to ourselves. Our rental house was right on the beach, so we only had to stumble downstairs. Tom and Kel got boogey boards which they had far too much fun with. The water was so warm, unlike the cold water at home in BC, so we were constantly out in the water.

The food was pretty great – had some deep fried chicken, pulled pork, fried okra and other fixings at Smithfield Chicken enroute to the beach, and then Jeff and Kelly were bbqing up some grouper and other local fresh fish, as well as pasta with fresh huge shrimp and scallops. Mmmm.

After the beach, we headed back and checked out Chapel Hill. It’s a cute little university town centred around UNC Chapel Hill, a liberal arts college. There was gorgeous houses, and a large downtown strip of shops. The university was gorgeous, with old stone, but it was pouring rain so we wanted to get out of there pretty quick.

Back in Raleigh, our friends had a huge house, as is the norm around there. It felt alot more suburban than we expected, but a beautiful suburbs as there was parks and forrests all around, as part of Research Triangle Park. In hindsight, I looked up population stats and realized that Vancouver has double the population of Raleigh, and metro Vancouver has double metro Raleigh, so it makes sense now that it didn’t feel as big city.

After wondering Raleigh and Durham, we set off to Charleston with my former co-worker Ashley. Enroute, we had to check out Cracker Barrel for a home cooked southern dinner which was really tasty and cheap – $7 for a huge spread of pulled pork, 2 sides and cornbread.

After five hours, we hit Charleston, which was much more of a tourist city than Raleigh, with a larger downtown core. We headed off on a small bus tour of town, and the elderly guide was quite a storyteller – he was a local resident all his life and had lots to us about the first shot in the civil war fired nearby, and about the gorgeous heritage houses in town. There were so many gorgeous old homes, with huge patios where you could picture yourself sipping a mint julip, trying to share yourself from the sun.

The last day we went to Magnolia Plantation, but were were a little disappointed as the flowers were not in bloom. We wondered the gardens for hours, and checked out the swamp walk where we saw several alligators.