Wilmington, North Carolina

Our new home in NC!

So Here we are!  As much as this campground is pretty funky you can see that our site is pretty darn good!  We have a ton of space on either side so we can have x-pens out when ever we want!  It is quiet, with only a few dogs and they have been no problem so far!  There are a bunch of feral cats here and we were warned that some of them can be pretty aggressive so we are happy to have Zoe here to keep them away.  Some of the neighbors have come over to visit with the buns and every one of them have been shocked by Bogie’s size!  The site is very level so setting up the trailer was a breeze and it is a full hook-up site on the cheep, couldn’t ask for a whole lot more!

There were some college kids in the campground over the weekend, in town from Raleigh, NC for a rugby tournament and a pair of the girls came over to visit.  One of the girls was from New York originally and had a House Rabbit in the past so she was interested in Bogie (for his size, she thought her 8 pound rabbit was big!) the trip and the blog.  People cannot really believe that we have the herd with us and we really are showing how it is possible to travel “Roam With Rabbits”!

The Riverwalk and board walk on the Cape Fear River, Wilmington, NC

On our first day in Wilmington, 11/02, we went into the Downtown and Cape Fear River areas (I’ve been keeping my eye out for both Robert Mitchum and Robert De Niro just in case), there is a boardwalk with shops and restaurants along the river.  We brought Zoe along but had to leave her in the truck when we were on the boardwalk. This town has a ton of history, it has been around since before the Revolution (it was incorporated in 1739) and as a major port it played a critical role in opposition to the British in the years leading up to the Revolution. During the Civil War Wilmington was the major and busiest base for Confederate blockade runners delivering badly needed supplies from England. It was captured by Union forces in the Battle of Wilmington in February 1865.  We were quite impressed with the old houses in the neighborhood around the Riverwalk area and the downtown architecture was beautiful as well.

Debby found a cupcake shop while we were window shopping in Wilmington, NC

There were a ton of shops, we have little room to store stuff in the trailer so our “shopping” trips are pretty much window shopping but there was plenty to look at and good chow to munch on.  Debby found a cupcake shop and got a red velvet cupcake and was in heaven.  We found a seafood / oyster bar for me but I had crab cakes on smokey lima beans instead of oysters and we both had a nice pasta dish, mine with fresh flounder grilled to perfection.  It was a great day and we really enjoyed Wilmington, the little bit we saw.  Since we will be here at least for the next two weeks I am sure we will get to see more of the town.

 

Zoe and Victor, playing on the beach at Kure Beach.

Zoe was a hoot playing with the water!

The weather has been very good to us after the fiasco in West Virginia and on the 3rd we had a chance to get out and see more of the area.  Debby, Zoe and I went to Kure Beach and Zeke’s Island Coastal Reserve for a hike and to get to the ocean for the first time this trip.  The hike was fantastic!  This was the first time Zoe had ever seen the ocean and being a desert gal she wasn’t quite sure about the place.  The first thing she did was smell the water, seems the brine of the sea was a shocker!  She also gave it a taste, not at all what she was expecting.  Zoe has always been a sprinkler chaser and she had a blast playing with the waves as they rolled up onto the shore but she didn’t drink a whole lot and needed lots of fresh water when we got back to the truck to get the salty taste out of her mouth!

Boardwalk across a marsh in Zeke’s Island Coastal Reserve.

Debby and I had a nice picnic on Carolina Beach

My Picnic partner!

Yesterday, 11/4, we headed to Carolina beach for a picnic in the sand! Carolina Beach is a long stretch of beach that was dotted with off-season folks enjoying the nice autumn day, a guy was flying a stunt kite, a couple was getting married on the sand and there were plenty of fishermen.  I asked one kid that was setting up his gear what he was fishing for and he said “anything that bites”!  I do know that they have beautiful flounder in the waters around here as well as red drum, speckled trout, whiting, spots, bluefish and pompano. there are local oyster and clam beds near here too, a seafood lovers delight!!! (Heaven, I’m in heaven!) We have had a wonderful start to the North Carolina leg of the trip.

You might be wondering what happens to the buns when we head out to sight see or hike or bike or what ever.  Well sometimes we take them with us in the truck, just pack them like we do for the road legs of the trip.  If we will be out for too long a time we set them up in the trailer.

This is part of the set up for then buns when we go out to tourist!

This is the other part of the set up for then buns when we go out to tourist!

This is a pretty major deal because the cages are too big to fit through the door of the trailer while set-up!  The way we get this done with minimal impact on the buns is we set up our two x-pens and transfer the top two guys (always Doc and Bogie) to the pens.  We then pull everything out of the cages and either refresh the litter boxes with fresh hay of clean them out completely, depends on the changing schedule.  If needed we change out the blankets and the cages get broken down, I bring the cages into the trailer and set them back up, we move Doc and Bogie to the cages and repeat the process for the two pairs on the bottom.  We put Doc, Bogie and Szolt / Halle on the bed (on a sheet) and Joey / Angie’s cage gets set up on the table.  This has worked out and everyone gets time in the great outdoors in the process!

Well it’s off to bed now, tomorrow I am out looking for a short-term gig to help fill the coffers for the next leg of the trip, tomorrow night I am meeting up with my friend, Michael Hand and will be headed out to a Blues Night at one of the local clubs, its open mic so I might see some stage time, looking forward to that big time because there are some strict rules about playing in the street in this town. 😦

I’ll post again soon, if you have any questions about the buns just follow the blog and ask in the comments!

Victor