Sooooo glad to be home. We made the drive on Saturday, clocking in at just under 6 hours. That doesn’t count the stop at Flaming Amy’s burritos. Should you find yourself in Wilmington, go there. In fact, should you find yourself in the eastern half of the state, go there. Avocado Wasabi salsa continues to haunt my dreams. In a good way.

On Friday night, since it was our last night at the beach, we decided to go out. We thought we’d try The Old Pier House in Kure Beach, just randomly, since it popped up on Google Earth. When we got down to the pier, though, there was a line inside and out the door. “Why not try Big Daddy’s?” we thought. “There’s no line there.”

Sometimes, there is a reason there is no line. The reason there was no line at Big Daddy’s is that Big Daddy’s sucks. It takes a lot to make fried crab meat and bread inedible, but they managed it. The atmosphere was straight out of one of those indie movies,  the kind where they put the hip travelers (not that I’m implying that Foxy and I are too cool for school, but aack) in an environment so foreign as to seem otherwordly. Or the kind where the Mafiosos meet someplace with too many children screaming for them to be overheard. The kind with carpet that hasn’t been replaced since the Carter administration. The kind with too low popcorn ceilings.

The hush puppies were good though. And afterward, we held our bellies in pain and ambled out onto the pier to see the sunset behind the houses on the island. We watched a boy catch a tiny sand shark that looked just like a shrunken Jaws toy. And we smelled lots and lots of fish.