Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden Part 1

Last month my mom, sister, and I decided to visit the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. It had been on our list of places to visit since we moved here, so it was nice to finally go! The weather was hot that day, but not too humid.

We arrived mid-afternoon, so the lighting was kind of harsh, which isn't the greatest for taking pictures, but not too bad either!

The garden was just so beautiful! There was so many different flowers and plants, nice walking trails, and things to look at we spent several hours there and didn't even realize we were there for as long as we were!

I took so many pictures I split this up into several posts. I have one more post with pictures of the gardens, and then another post featuring the butterfly house!

Have you ever visited a botanical garden?

Our Outer Banks Itinerary

Here you can find Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of our trip to the Outer Banks.

This is a post I've been meaning to write since we visited the Outer Banks back in February. Better late than never, right?

We decided very last minute to take a trip to the Outer Banks. Meaning we found and booked a hotel, but didn't really have much more than that planned out. After some looking around online, I found a few things to do and we headed out on our trip!

Typically when we travel we try to do and see as much as possible, so this was a little different for us as we didn't have a list of things we wanted to do. Considering there isn't a ton to see and do, we were limited on what we could do considering the time of year as well. 

We left on a Tuesday afternoon and arrived at the hotel around 7. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express in Nags Head. For the record, I think we paid something like $89 a night in February, but I just looked out of curiosity and the rooms are now going for over $200 a night during the summer months! There are definite perks to traveling during the off season!

Anyways, on our first night there we brought food with us and ate dinner in our hotel room and just hung out in the room for the night.

Wednesday morning we got up and headed down to the beach off of the hotel. We spent some time walking around along the beach there. The weather was nice, not too warm but not too cold.

There were lots of little rocks and shells that my mom and sister had fun collecting. I, of course, took lots of pictures and my dad just enjoyed walking around and just being on the beach.

After we were done at the beach, we got in the car and drove up to Kitty Hawk to visit the Wright Brothers memorial. We had a National Park Pass, so the visit for us was free, otherwise you can find ticket information here.

There isn't really a ton to see, but since it's all spread out you can either walk or drive around to the different things. We opted to walk, which meant we spent probably a couple of hours there.

It was a little past lunch time by the time we were done at the Wright Brothers Memorial, so we decided to find somewhere to eat lunch. I quickly did a search on my phone and found Blue Moon Beach Grill was highly recommended. Despite the raving reviews, we found the food to be just okay. Nothing too spectacular, but not too bad either. Kind of just the stereotypical restaurant you'd expect to find in a beach town. 

After lunch we headed down the road to a candy shop we had passed by earlier because my mom and sister wanted some salt water taffy. So we stopped by Forbes Candies. There was a coffee shop in the same complex so my dad and I went over to Morning View Coffee House for some coffee. I was expecting something mediocre but was pleasantly surprised at how good the coffee was. I got a vanilla latte (which is usually my 'safe' choice if I am unsure about the coffee somewhere.) but you could actually taste the richness of the espresso instead of just the syrup like at most places. Definitely recommend stopping by there if you are in the Outer Banks!

Once we had our coffee and candy, we drove out to the Bodie Island light house. My mom has always liked lighthouses, so we made sure to stop by several on our trip!

We didn't go inside of the visitor center, we just took a few pictures of the outside before getting back in the car and driving along highway 12. 

We drove along highway 12 for a while before we made it to the town of Rodanthe, which is where we found a public beach access.

There was no one else at the beach, so it was nice to have it to ourselves while we were there! This beach though, had pretty treacherous water. The tide was going out, which made it even more dangerous. You could see quite a few rip currents and the waves really crashed on the beach.

We only stayed at the beach for maybe an hour, maybe two. We didn't really keep track of time! But regardless, we didn't stay too long.

We got back in the car and started heading back towards Nag's Head. It was too early to go back to the hotel, but we weren't really sure what else to do. When we saw the turnoff for Manteo on Roanoke Island, we decided to head over there. 

We drove through Manteo and out toward Fort Raleigh/Lost Colony of Roanoke. It was close to closing time at the visitor center (I think there was maybe 20 minutes until closing) but when we got inside a volunteer came over and started talking to us. She told us all about the history of the area and different theories about what happened to the settlers. It was all very interesting and had we had more time we would have explored more. (If you aren't familiar with the Lost Colony of Roanoke, you can read more about it here.) The grounds stayed open though, so once the visitor center closed we walked around the grounds for a bit before getting in the car and heading back to the hotel.

The next morning as we were getting ready for the day I was watching the water outside and happened to see some dolphins! My dad had brought some binoculars along so I grabbed those and there were probably 3-4 dolphins all swimming around!

After watching the dolphins for a bit we got in the car and drove down to Cape Hatteras Light Station. We didn't stay long, just long enough to take a few pictures and then leave.

There was a beach nearby, so we parked there and walked along the beach for a while. We ended up seeing another pod of dolphins!

The weather was really nice and warm this day, and we enjoyed watching the dolphins and walking along the beach. We didn't have any plans this day, so after a bit of discussion we decided to head down to Ocracoke island.

Luckily we had packed a lunch with us as there was not much in way of stores or food the farther south we drove. We were all surprised at how remote the Outer Banks was (with the exception of Nags Head and north of there.) for the most part the towns really didn't have much to them. Maybe a grocery store and some touristy shops, but that was about it. 

Anyways, we had to take a ferry over to Ocracoke, which took about 45 minutes. It was around lunch time then, so we ate our lunch on the ferry ride. 

Once we arrived on the island, we headed to the Ocracoke Lighthouse. We all decided it was the ugliest lighthouse we had seen. It was kind of in a weird location as it was down a residential street with houses all around it.

We drove around the island a bit before heading to the beach again, where we spent the remainder of our day. We saw more dolphins, collected shells and took plenty of pictures! 

Overall we had a good time on our trip. We aren't the kind of people who just want to sit on the beach all day every day. We like to go and do activities or explore, so while we enjoyed our time in the Outer Banks, we probably wouldn't go out of our way to visit there again.

Have you ever visited the Outer Banks?

Currently

Working on - Editing some pictures from a botanical garden we went to last month. I am hoping to share them next week, I just have a bit of editing to finish up first.

Trying - I tried a chocolate chip cookie recipe from Sally's Baking Addiction this past week and they were really good. I don't know that I liked them better than my own recipe, but I think I'm going to have to make a couple of changes to my current recipe to see if I can make them even better!

Eating - Lots of berries! I really like blueberries, so I have been enjoying those! As well as strawberries, raspberries, and Northwest cherries. I was surprised to see that they sell Northwest cherries over here in Virginia, but they do! They really are the best.

Wishing - For the weather to cool down! It's been in the mid to upper 90's all week and with the heat index it's been over 100. Fortunately our house stays nice and cool so I try to avoid going outside! But I am definitely looking forward to some cooler weather.

Needing - To work on my photo a day pictures. It's already July 22 and I haven't taken a single photo for the month! Oops!

Reading - I haven't really read anything good or worth mentioning lately, but, I am looking forward to the new book Fragments of Fear by Carrie Stuart Parks. I've read all of her books and really liked them, so I'm hoping this new one will be good!

Watching - There hasn't been much on but we've been watching America's Got Talent and Dateline.

What have you been up to lately?