Day 17: Monday, September 30, 2013

44 miles from Fort Fisher AF Recreation Center to Brunswick Beaches Camping Resort, Sunset Beach, NC. We had a lovely ride out of Fort Fisher and stopped to check out the memorial.  The ride was uneventful and we rode into the campground to discover we are camping on Uncle Bob’s Drive. 

Leaving fort Fisher

Fort Fisher Memorial. Look closely and you will see Donna's new helmet

Ocean view from Fort Fisher Memorial

Day 16: Sunday, September 29, 2013

We spent the day shopping and chasing down parts for Donna’s bicycle.  The mechanic at the bike store didn’t come in as scheduled, so we ended up going to Ace Hardware to find the necessary bolts and washers.  They had an entire bolt room.  It was awesome; we finally got what we needed and Bob was able to put everything back together.  Donna got a new helmet that makes her look like a winged goddess.  I’ll have her pose tomorrow when we get back to bicycling.  We weren’t able to get donuts, but we found a place for spot.  As we were headed to Costco we saw the sign below and caught a late lunch on our way back to the trailer. It was pretty darn good.  Now we are relaxing and watching the sun set over the Cape Fear River.  

 

Carolina Beach

Sunset over Cape Fear River

The picture says it all:(

Day 15: Saturday, September 28, 2013

59 miles from Lanier’s Campground, Surf City, NC to Fort Fisher, Kure Beach, NC.  Hampstead, NC was celebrating their 50^th Spot Festival, the major fundraiser for the fire department.  We only had to detour about ½ mile to stop by.  We got there about 9:30 so things were only just getting started.  We had already bicycled 16 miles, so we were hungry of course.  We looked around and saw all of the usual vendors: funnel cakes, fried pickles, hamburgers, hot dogs, etc. and wondered where the spot was.  As it turns out they were waiting for the oil to heat up and the spot wouldn’t be ready until 11:00.  Since we had so far to cycle, we didn’t want to wait that long.  We headed back to the other vendors and decided to split a pulled barbecue sandwich with the fixin’s. Since we were the first sale of the day, it took a bit of time for them to chop the meat.  As we were waiting we talked about our trip.  The woman was so impressed she gave us the sandwich on the house. Thanks Smokin’ Pitt Bar-B-Q!  Another 20 miles and we hit the center of Wilmington.  Of course we were hungry again so we had a triple grilled cheese at Chops Deli on Front Street.  Getting through Wilmington was much easier than we had anticipated, probably because the traffic was less on a Saturday.  Once we got past Wilmington, we were on back roads and made it to Fort Fisher pretty quickly.  Poor Donna lost the screws to one of her cages and her helmet is falling apart.  We pulled over in Snows Cut Park so she could take the cage off.  I wandered over to the edge of the park and was surprised to see a lovely view of Cape Fear River.  The ride into Kure Beach was beautiful as we came up over a hill and saw the ocean.  We will take tomorrow off to find a bike store so Donna can get what she needs and make a run to Costco. Hopefully, we’ll find those donuts!