|
|
|
|
After dinner we were sitting around visiting and Charlie made a comment about the bouys off shore. He thought that the coast guard had probably set up a zone to keep boats away from the island. As he was describing his theory, I noticed that the coast guard ship had moved in REALLY close to shore and there seemed to be some activity going on. We all rushed outside to investigate and noticed the coast guard was shining a huge spotlight at the beach and lighting up the back of the house were Gore was staying. Charlie and I went up to the upper deck for a better view, and Ruth noticed several secret service agents rushing into the water. There was also a good bid of activity in the front of the house. At this point none of us knew exactly what was going on, but it sure made the secret service jump into action. The rest of the night was fairly calm, but it did begin to rain. Because of the rain, Ruth and I decided to cancel our nightly walk along the beach. On Monday we got up earlier than usual and visited briefly with her Peg and Celia. We then headed off to see the North Carolina Aquarium at Ft. Fisher. On our way, we stopped by the Lighthouse Casual Dining and Raw Bar for lunch. The seating was somewhat unusual, but it was a nice place and the food was good. We dined on crab dip, hush puppies, french fries, and crab cakes. From there we continued on to find the Aquarium. We drove past a sign pointing to a construction entrance and shortly there after ran out of road. All that was in front of us was the ocean, so we figured we must have missed the Aquarium. As we were retracing our steps, we saw several cars turing towards the construction entrances, so we followed that road for a while. We past a small recreation area and soon we saw the gates of the aquarium. They were right behind the sign that said that the Aquarium was closed for construction. Yep, we drove all the way there to find out it was closed. Oh well... On our trip back to Figure 8, we stopped by UNC-Wilmington to make use of the computers in the library. We did a quick check of our email. We also stopped by a grocery store since it was our night to cook dinner for everyone. As we turned back onto the street we watched the secret service agent get out of his car, look at us, and then just wave us on through to the house. There's something empowering about having the secret service just look at you and wave you on through. Anyway, we got back and quickly put away the groceries so we could go play on the beach. We soaked in some rays and played in the waves, then rushed inside to get cleaned up so we could prepare dinner. We prepared some nice salmon as an appetizer for everyone else while we slaved away in the kitchen. Okay, so we kept some for ourselves. The dinner we had chosen to prepare was a nice selection of shrimp tacos and shrimp quesadillas. For those interested, the quesadillas are really easy to make (6-7 shrimp per quesadilla, Kraft Cheddar & Jack finely shredded cheese, Pace Picante sauce, and tortillas. Pre-heat the oven to 375, heat the shrimp before putting them in the quesadilla, bake for about 6 minutes flippling them after about 3 minutes.) We also included a salad to make it appear a bit more balanced. And Being the smart people that we are, we used Chinet paper plates, paper napkins, plastic bowls, etc. so clean up was a lot easier for us. We also included ice cream for dessert, along with the chocolate syrup from the night before, some pecans in syrup, some caramel syrup, and of course the Jack Daniels. After dinner we watch some of the opening of the Republican National Convention then snuck away for a nap. We woke up around midnight and headed out for our walk along the beach. Very quiet and peaceful, lots of stars, gentle waves, and secret service agents standing around with flashlights. We planned on Tuesday being a very relaxing day at the beach for us, especially since we decided to head back to Raleigh on Tuesday night. So, on Tuesday we overslept a little and didn't feel guilty about it. We got ready for the beach and headed that direction, only to find out we planned on being out there during high tide and it was starting to rain a little. So, we had breakfast instead. After that we headed to the beach of close to 2 hours of fun in the sun and surf. Then it was back inside to get cleaned up. We went back into Raleigh for lunch at Elijah's and planned on some more fun on the beach when we returned to the island. The secret service said hi to us as they waved us through. We noticed we were rather red from the morning so we opted not to return to the beach. Instead we packed our stuff, rested, and said farewell to Ruth's parents, Charlie and Jenny, Figure 8 Island, and of course the secret service.
|
|
