My ride picked me up this morning. We were going to take the ferry over to Southport, but when we arrived, we had missed it. So we just drove around to Southport.  As I learned later in the day, it really was not cost effective to drive around, as the ferry was only $5.  Yes, you read that right. Five dollars to take two passengers and a car on a 30 minute boat ride from Fort Fisher to Southport or vice versa. It would have been the same price for me and my Lazy Daze RV. Wow! I could not believe it.  Ferry’s are far more expensive in Washington and in Alaska..  More on ferries in a moment.

First stop in Southport… was a delightfully fun store to walk into, extremely dangerous to look around in as there was no way you could walk back out without buying something.  Initially, it was beachy stuff that I have no room for in my RV, then I turned a corner and it was…drumroll.. a room filled to capacity with old time candies.  Haven’t seen some of this since childhood and definitely did not know they still made them. For example – candy cigarettes, the candy dots that you peel off paper in strips, etc. So I suggest to click on the following 4 pictures to see what you missed.

Lynne just outside the candy shoppe

Lynne was my companion for the day. What a delightful, fun day we had today.  The above candy shoppe within the store was just a fraction of what one could buy in this place. Huge sections devoted to kids of all ages.  I so wish I knew what the kids or adults in the family would have liked, I would have bought it here.  Fun, fun, fun place to explore in.  I was equally fascinated with the zillion kinds of jigsaw puzzles for kids as well as adults. Wow!   But every corner you turned was an enchanting new discovery of fun stuff.  Lots of sand dollars in every conceivable form, such as wind chimes, or art work. Lots of mermaids and pirates too.  Good place to explore.

After that, we walked down to the Christmas store. Christmas year around is the ultimate choice. The store had some awesome Christmas ornaments, decorations and such, but they also carried items, that I often refer to as dust collectors for the different holidays, not just Christmas. Saw several wreathes (spring flower one was an exceptional one) I would loved to have owned… alas they are too big for my RV.

By this time, we were getting hungry.  The place we ended up for lunch greeted us with this alligator below.

Nice reception!

Well stated…

The place was seemingly packed, altho most were not sitting out on this veranda next to us except a sea gull.

outdoor seating for restaurant

This was a great lunch!

My lunch for the day was a grilled chicken breast, avocados, and Saucy Wench sauce on homemade bread that was toasted. Oooh this was so delicious… but I had to finally ask what about the sauce as I just could not pinpoint what it was other then it was pink. Interesting enough it was raspberries and horseradish. An amazingly delicious combo – awesome sandwich.  Lynne had a triple decker turkey and beef sandwich with lettuce and tomato and onion – which she said was excellent too.  By this time, we needed to work off some of this lunch.  So we headed to the Waterfront Park.

This park, the restaurant are all on Cape Fear River

They have swings vs benches for folks in this area

sea gulls sunbathing

Long line of birds sunbathing along boardwalk

After seeing the Waterfront park, we walked back up to the stores and we visited a few art galleries, a artist consignment type store, a clothing & bag store, then we entered into the Celtic store. Another wonderful store to visit and extremely difficult to not buy something. I found a perfect mug for tea with a matching lid. These are great to keep drinks hot or cold with the lid on.  Nice place to visit.

Well, this person was getting tired… Haven’t done this kind of day in eons, lots of fun, beautiful weather, good friend and lots to see. So we headed to the ferry.  I was expecting similar size ships as one sees in Washington and in Alaska.  So as we wait, in comes this dinky ferry. I did not know they made such small ferries. Its an open deck. We stayed in the car, watching the birds, looking at the islands,  and visiting.

Birds hitching a ride on side of ferry

Pelican Island

Black bird..

A duplicate of the ferry we are on going the other way

Beautiful shopping bag colors

Shopping bag colors are bright!

I had a friend back in Alaska that saved these colorful plastic shopping bags, cut them into strips and wove them into tote bags, mud rugs, even a child’s rain coat. I may send these back to her. Bright cheery colors.