Veteran's Day

Our commemorations of the Veteran's Day began on Sunday afternoon. Entrance to the NC Aquarium in Pine Knolls Shores, NC is free on two days of the year: Veteran's Day and MLK Day. Given that the our new "AARP-approved" budget encourages me to be frugal (some would say, even more so than before), we took advantage of the ocassion to visit the aquarium. It had been closed for renovations for almost two years and I had been curious about the improvements ever since they reopened last spring. Besides, I'd like to be able to recommend the site to visitors in case they wanted to find something else to do besides fishing. The entrance fee is $8.00 per adult so I also wanted to make sure it was worth that much and not just another tourist trap along the way.

We took the short drive pass the eastern end of Emerald Isle, then passing through the small town of Indian Beach and finally to Pine Knolls Shore. It was about 10 miles from our house.

Even before we walked in, we were quite impressed with the lay out of the parking area, the fountains and landscaping. Once inside, the exibits and the huge tanks with all kinds of of aquatic life were very impressive. Belinda stayed watching some freshwater turtles for what felt like half an hour, but each of the tanks could have kept us there all that long. Definitely a "Highly recommended" rating to the aquarium.

Since it was such a nice day we continued on for a quick drive around Morehead City and Beauford and made it home before dark.

Veteran's Day was a definitely different. For one thing, the Post Office was CLOSED!!! Talk about changing my whole routine. I tell you, this is not as easy as it seems.

To make the day more memmorable, the weather behaved very nicely with highs in the low 70Fs. Water temperatures now just below 60F and mild SW winds. It almost felt like a holiday with all the visitors taking advantage of the beach. One of our neighboring house had about 10 SUV or Pick-up trucks parked on their dryway. It seemed as if everyone of the passengers had a fishing station with a few fishing poles.

For a while I thought I was going to give the fish a break for the holiday, but just as the sun was setting I rushed out of the house with ONE finger mullet on one hand. On the way down the stairs I grabbed the fishing pole, a plastic chair and my bucket. It turned out to be a bit too optimistic to carry only one piece of bait. In no time I lost one piece to the surf and the other I lost after having a short battle with a "huge beast" that ate my bait but which was able to set itself free. I'm sure it was a huge creature of the sea.... but we will never know since it is still out there.

Man, I'm getting good at lying about the size of fish... I am surprised how easily I was able to keep a straight face.... I must be becoming a good fisherman after all.