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I haven't posted in awhile because I have been doing a bit of entertaining!! Several years ago, I reconnected with my best friend from high school whom I had lost for about 40 years! Since then we have gotten together at least once a year if not more. She lives in Florida but comes up once a year to North Carolina for a bridge tournament put on by the local bridge club. She took up bridge about five years ago because of another high school friend's encouragement -- she is an extremely good bridge player!! The first year she came up for the tournament, she came only with her partner for bridge. The following year she brought up two additional ladies and insisted that I be her partner. This was rather daunting as I hadn't played bridge in almost fifty years and things have changed considerably in the bidding. This was my third year of playing in the tournament with her and even though I only play once a year, we consistently score master points (which don't count for me as I don't belong to the bridge league). I actually feel like a bridge player again!! This past week she came again with two friends, for one it is her third visit and the other her second. We had a grand time, playing cards and visiting the Wilmington sights!! This is a view from a boat ride we took one day when the temps were in the 80s! We ate at this wonderful little restaurant called George right on the Cape Fear River -- it is the building with the white awnings. The food is generous and really good!!
This was one of the petroleum storage facilities at the Port on the Cape Fear River. They paid a lot of money to have this painted and it would be great if they were all painted!!
Jean and Vicki decided to go for a walk along the beach one evening after dinner.
This is the four of us after a victorious bridge session. We came in first as a team winning all our rounds. I am the second from the left.
The Azalea Festival (one of the big yearly festivals) isn't scheduled until next week. The weather has been so warm, though, that there will be few azaleas left to bloom. They were glorious when we were touring around last week!
There has been constant bulldozer noise at night as they are renourishing the beaches down here. These pipes are strung for at least a mile along the beach with a ship pumping sand from the ocean up onto the beach.
This is one of the bulldozers and the end of the pipe from which sand is spewing forth!! It is quite a process and it has been done about every two or three years since we have been down here. The sand gets pulled out and shoals created and then man comes in, breaks down those shoals and pumps the sand back to the beach.
I visited the deer down at the Air Force Recreation area. They have closed off the road that I usually go down so I had to look at them from a distance (about a herd of ten). I then decided to turn around and all of a sudden they came running up the field to greet me -- I thought I was going to be surrounded!! They are obviously used to someone feeding them from a car!! I still haven't seen the big buck though. In another few months when I will be gone, I am sure there will be lots of fawns. Hopefully some will still have their spots when I come down in the fall.
I am back to sewing, finishing up a couple of blouses for my daughter and then sewing more purses. Had to buy more fusible fleece as I actually finished off a bolt!
For the past week, I have been entertaining visitors from sunny and warm Florida. Luckily I was able to provide them with a couple of fairly nice days of tourist activities here in the Wilmington area. Because of our severe cold a couple of weeks ago, our flowers are behind schedule this year Here you can see one of my visitors, Barbara, looking at this beautiful pink magnolia. It was a gorgeous day
There was lots of beautiful scenery to photograph at Airlie Gardens, one of my favorite tourist spots in Wilmington. There are two large ponds and lots of trees with Spanish moss. Depending on the season, many ducks make their home here as well but make themselves scarce for visitors.
There were Gadwalls (here) as well as American Widgeons and Hooded Mergansers on one of the ponds.
I spotted this adult Black Crowned Night Heron hanging out by one of the ponds and barely visible in the Spanish moss.
There were quite a few Blue Grey Gnatcatchers flitting around.
There were also a number of male Cardinals singing like crazy around the Gardens
Airlie Gardens is famous for their Camellias and we were not disappointed with the showing! Loved this pink and white variegated one.
Another really pretty white Camellia.
The Yellow Bellied Sliders were out in force sunning on every available log.
This is a closeup of one of the Sliders. You can see where he gets his name!
I finally got all the ladies to pose for me. Left to right are Barbara, Jean, my friend Vicki (the ringleader of this group and my best friend from high school), and Vicki's SIL Joan. Joan and Jean are fellow quilters. Barbara, Jean and Vicky were up here to play in a sectional bridge tournament. They come up early to try to get me retrained so that I can play and not embarrass myself too badly.
We left Airlie Gardens, ate a lovely seafood lunch at the Boathouse and then headed to downtown Wilmington again and took a one hour cruise down the Cape Fear River (or rather up the river as we took the northern trip). This is the courthouse downtown. A new factoid I didn't know is that this is the opening scene from the old Matlock tv shows with Andy Griffith who I did know owned houses down here at Wrightsville Beach.
I had just left the boat when I spotted this bird landing in a tree right next to me. At first I thought pigeon but looked closer and realized it was a Eurasian Collared Dove. I knew they were down here but had never seen one before. This picture made him easy to identify!!
Playing bridge the first two days was pretty disastrous. My partner had many raised eyebrows and was frustrated with me by the end of the second day. However, I really redeemed myself the third day where we won just about everything we played in!! I really feel like I am a better bridge player than I ever was 50 years ago when I played all the time but so much has changed in the game bidding, it is difficult to catch up. The ladies were happy as they got a much desired master point plus. If I didn't have so many hobbies already, I might be convinced to start playing on a regular basis again. The people were nice and the game is challenging. Vicki and I never played when we were in high school. She only learned about four years ago and already has close to 200 master points!! No wonder she gets frustrated with me but we do have to play with more competent players because of her master points -- that is my story and I am sticking to it!!
The Azalea Festival is the biggest festival in downtown Wilmington, held around the first of April each year (although a little later this year). There are about 200 vendors, a parade and all sorts of entertainment for young and older. We capped off our day of touring the Festival vendors by taking a horse drawn carriage around downtown Wilmington to see some of the wonderful old architecture and azalea gardens. It was a near perfect day and here is me with my friend Debi (to the left) with Mike (the horse). All the horses they use for the rides are rescue horses.
The John Harper House. All these old houses were basically derelict 25 years ago (much like Charleston where there has been so much urban renewal). Now there are just one or two that need refurbishing. Even the new houses look like the old houses and blend right in.
There were lots of beautiful azaleas and dogwoods blooming.
More azaleas. The azaleas down here have much bigger flowers than the ones I am used to further north.
A beatiful dogwood in bloom. Unlike Charleston, you can see all the houses in downtown Wilmington as they don't have the large walled in courtyards. They do have earthquake bolts though (like Charleston) as there was a fear of earthquakes although there really has been none here (except for very small).
A view on River street with the Cape Fear River in the background. This was taken from the balcony of the Riverfront Cafe where we ate lunch.
My friend Debi is studying the menu for lunch!
No, this isn't a sculpture. It is a white alligator which makes its home at the Ft. Fisher Aquarium which is the largest aquarium in North Carolina and houses representatives of all the local species as well as provides teaching exhibits. It is a must for all guests down here and is about a mile from the beach house. The alligator is probably six or seven feet long.
They have large tanks with representatives of all the local fish. This is the Gar which is very common in at least the Brunswick River. They are very large and long and a fresh water fish.
They have a nice jellyfish exhibit as well.
There were a number of these Quail walking around the exhibit of the local fauna although their plummage effectively hides them. The wood ducks were hiding the day we were there.
We have had guests for almost a week now with some overlap between the two sets!! My neighbors from the north came last week and we wanted to find some new places for them to visit. They had come down last year and we had taken them to many of Wilmington's attractions. One of my neighbors down here suggested that the Arboretum was well worth a visit if we hadn't been there so that was our first stop. It is located very close to Airlie Gardens. You never know what you will find this time of year as it is still a bit early for all the spring flowers. This is a view into the very lovely Japanese Garden there. The Arboretum was lovely and is a free attraction as well. It was a nice start to our beautiful day.
This is a view into the large pond that greets you.
The pond was full of carp in all colors and very large. They obviously expected us to feed them as they all swam over when we appeared by the side. I liked the stars that formed from the sun shining on the water!
We then headed to Airlie Gardens which is always a "must see" here in Wilmington. It is a gorgeous place with old Live Oaks, gardens, walkways and birds. We actually discovered a path that we had never taken before and it was my favorite so far! This is a view into one of the ponds.
The camelias were pretty much in full bloom with lots of varieties as always. These camelia gardens are close to 100 years old.
I even like looking under the bushes to see the petals from the flowers that have fallen probably that night!
There were lots of turtles out sunning on this lovely day.
Just a closer look at all the turtles (probably yellow bellied sliders).
There is one pond that has many species of ducks on it and we were not disappointed. They do keep their distance but we were rewarded with some nice views on our new path which goes all the way around the pond. In this picture you can see Scaups, Widgeons, Gadwalls and Hooded Mergansers, malles and females of all!
A lovely male American Widgeon with his irridescent green head and a white stripe down the front of his face and just a touch of black on the end of his bill.
A male Hooded Merganser with his female companion not far behind.
The female Hooded Merganser all fluffed up.
The male and female Gadwalls were there as well. We saw all the indigenous ducks except the Wood Duck and the Green Winged Teal which has eluded me.
As I was taking so many duck pictures, the others were resting on a bench waiting for me. Here are Sharon and Warren.
This is the Battleship USS North Carolina which has graced the Wilmington skyline for just over 50 years. It was literally brought there with contributions from the school children of North Carolina after being scheduled for scrap.
It was considered the "showboat" of the Navy fleet in its time and saw battle in the Pacific.
This is taken from the boardwalk in downtown Wilmington. You need to take the bridge across the Cape Fear to do the tour.
Here are the rest of the troop, Ed, Ann and Warren. Ed and Ann are my youngest daughter's inlaws and super nice people. Ed was in the Navy during the Viet Nam era and just self-published a book on his experiences on Amazon (Ed's book).
We were surprised at how long it took us to go through the whole ship (up and down many steps which were more like ladders than steps!). Ed was on a much smaller battleship when he served and was amazed at how much space there was (look awfully small to me for 2000 men). After seeing the mechanicals, I told Warren that is where he should have served if he had been in the service. He said that is where he would have volunteered except for the requirement for four years rather than the two if you were drafted. That was a surprise to me.
Ann is set up to shoot one of the anti-aircraft guns.
Ed and Warren posing in front of one of the BIG guns...
Will you look at the chain holding the second anchor. Each link must weigh hundreds of pounds.
Warren thought I was going overboard at one point as I tripped over a rope and did a nosedive right to the edge. I think my big butt would have kept me from going completely under.... I have been giving my dear husband far far too many scares lately -- poor man.
There were lots of birds to see from the ship as well -- pictures of which I posted yesterday!!
All in all, a very nice day and a very nice visit with Ed and Ann. We are lucky our youngest married into such a nice family!!
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