Wilmington North Carolina – tierneycreates

In yesterday’s post about my recent trip to North Carolina to accompany my partner John on a business trip (Trip to North Carolina: Quilt Shop Wander), I mentioned how happy I was to have fresh seafood because we are “landlocked” in Colorado.

Well in addition to seafood fresh from the ocean, I was so happy to be back at the ocean!

Wilmington, NC is right on the Atlantic ocean and I spent a lot of time wandering along Wrightsville Beach either with my partner or alone (while poor John had to work!)

We stayed at The Blockage Runner Beach Resort, which was right on the ocean (and we had wonderful views of the ocean from our room).

image credit: Blockage Runner facebook page

Here is a view from our hotel room window:

And each morning, we woke up to some amazing sunrises! We made sure to be up early each morning and watch the “show” out our window:

I brought several handwork craft projects to work on during the trip but I got nothing done because I got distracted by this:

The Atlantic Ocean, so happy to just stand here

I spent a lot of time walking the beach. Here is very happy me (taking a bad selfie as usual) about to head out for another walk along the beach:

Even if it was a gloomy/overcast day, I still walked the beach:

I had fun one afternoon selecting seashells from all the shells washed up on the shore. I only took a little as already had some from our previous visit to Wilmington, NC.

My partner John joined me for some of the walks. On one of our walks on the beach we spent a long time just standing there watching pelicans dive for fish in the ocean. There was something so peaceful, quiet and amazing doing that, I just cannot put the experience in to proper words. Here is a little video snippet from our experience:

Pelicans diving for fish

I took a hundred additional photos but most of us have seen the ocean before (and likely more beautiful ocean vistas than the ones I had from the Atlantic Ocean in the Winter) so I will spare you from all the other photos.

I do love the mountains of Colorado, but every so often it is so wonderful to see the sea…

25 inspiring quotes about the ocean | Eradicate Plastic

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Wilmington, North Carolina in Color

September 2, 2021September 2, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

This is sort of Part II of my post from yesterday, Wilmington, North Carolina in Black and White. We also took photos in color and I wanted to share a little more from our trip to Wilmington, NC for my partner John’s business meetings.

Let’s get started with THE BEACH!

In yesterday’s post I provided a little preview with this B&W photo I took after we parked our rental car and were headed to the beach:

Well here are some in color photos from our afternoon on the North Carolina coast:

There was something special about being on the East Coast of the US at the Atlantic Ocean again. It seems like I’ve spent a lot of my life (living in Seattle for 8 years and Oregon for 14 years) on the West Coast near or on the Pacific Ocean.

I grew up on the East Coast (Long Island and Upstate NY) and there was something so nostalgic about swimming in the Atlantic Ocean again! Now for me there was not much swimming as the waves were very active and even while standing on the shore I got knocked down by some forceful waves. John was braver and headed in deeper than I did.

A special treat of being on the Carolina coastline/Atlantic Ocean for the afternoon was all the SEASHELLS!

I spent part of the afternoon at the beach hunting for perfect seashells. I felt like I was a kid again wandering the seashore looking for shells!

Here is my haul:

And yes I have not been landlocked so long in Colorado that I thought the rock (with red arrow) was a seashell – ha! It was just a cool rock I found on the shore that wanted to come home with me!

We had a delicious lunch at a restaurant overlooking the ocean (had one of my favs for lunch – fish tacos!):

Since we were in a touristy coastal town, we had to of course indulge in the obligatory visit to the handmade candy shop (though we stayed away from the standard “salt water taffy” and fudge) and buy a caramel apple – yum!

Although tasty, it was not the best caramel covered candy apple we’ve ever had, that honor belongs to a candy shop in Estes Park, Colorado at the base of Rocky Mountain National Park (see post Rocky Mountain National Park).

Here are a couple more photos, this time in color, from the wander about downtown Wilmington I mentioned in yesterday’s post:

There was beautiful foliage everywhere. Definitely different types of plants than I see in Colorado!

Here we are at the shopping center I mentioned in yesterday’s post, before having dinner with his colleagues at a restaurant called “Port Land” instead of “Portland”.

Did you notice I managed not to cut off anyone’s head in the selfie above? Well that is because I think John took the selfie for me!

I will close this post with some photos that John took of the beautiful sunset on the river as we spent the early evening wandering the Wilmington Riverwalk:

Life in B&W, tierneytravels

Wilmington, North Carolina in Black and White

September 1, 2021September 2, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

A couple weeks ago my partner John had a 5 day business trip in Wilmington, North Carolina. Since I am not currently working (see post News) I accompanied him and Mike the Miniature Schnauzer stayed with the dog babysitter (Mike will do a post in the future about his adventures at “Dog Camp” for little dogs).

We stayed at the Embassy Suites on the Wilmington Riverfront, and each morning I went on a walk along the river to explore and take photos, many in Black & White. As some of you might remember I like to pretend I am a photographer and do B&W photoshoots (see my blog post category Life in B&W if you want to see more of my delusional photography…).

Here are some select B&W photos from my trip that I want to share with you (as usual I took a ridiculous amount of photos).

WANDERING ABOUT THE WILMINGTON RIVERWALK

The Wilmington Riverwalk is amazing and I was glad it was right outside our hotel!

Here is the photo that I would call “The Money Shot” (like they do in Hollywood) – it is my favorite photo I took along the Wilmington Riverwalk:

I love the reflection of the clouds on the water!

OLD BUILDINGS

I was fascinated by the old buildings I encountered while wandering around downtown Wilmington one day.

AROUND DOWNTOWN

Wandering around Downtown Wilmington…

THE RAILROAD MUSEUM

I thought I would get time to visit the Railroad Museum while I was there because I love railroads but time got away from me and I will have to save it for next time. I did take some photos though…

THE BEACH

Wilmington is on the North Carolina coast and we did spend an afternoon, when John was able to get out of meetings early, at the beach/ocean. Most of those photos were in color and I will share them on another post, but here is my one B&W photo at the on my way walk to the beach from where we parked.

BLOGGING CENTRAL

Our hotel room had a separate living room/kitchenette area from the bedroom area. Between the kitchenette and the living room was a desk set up. While on the trip I spent a bit of time catching up on reading blog posts as well as writing some posts. I took a photo of the desk I worked from in our hotel room:

I really enjoyed pretending I am a photographer! I also really enjoyed Wilmington, North Carolina!

John will be returning in the future for more business trips and there is a lot more to explore.

I also met some of his wonderful colleagues that live in North Carolina at a company dinner and look forward to spending time with them again. We dined at a place called the Port Land Grille (and yes after living in the Pacific NW I got a giggle over the name…) and I will close this post with a photo from the shopping center next to the restaurant.