Oak Island - the beach!

The next phase of our vacation took us to the other end of NC. We met up with my mother, step father, sister, and Ryan's only surviving great grandparent. We rented a fantastic house right on the beach. Thursday afternoon we ran to the beach quickly for as much as we could get because tropical storm Hanna was coming late Friday.

The surf looks pretty tame before the storm...

Ryan actually got his feet wet. Not bad for a guy who is terrified of the water.

MOMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Since Ryan wasn't interested in going into the ocean I decided to bring the ocean to him. He was fine standing on the beach back from the waves. I built him a "pool" so he could enjoy the water. I just filled it with water from buckets that i filled with ocean water.

Hard to believe but I caught a fish with a platic bucket!!!! It was swimming around in his makeshift pool. I managed to catch it again with a shovel and released it back into the surf.

Grandma Betty, Grandma Jean, Daddy walking in the surf.

This lighthouse was about a mile up the beach from us.

Grandma and Grandpa Riek

Thanks for a great time!!!!

Cabin and Nantahala Outdoor Center

Grandma had this hilarious bear mask. Seemed to fit well on Ryan.
We went to another river (Nantahala). This is really quite amazing to see. They release water from the damn upstream once a day and it more than doubles the amount of water in the river. When we got there the edge of the river was about 20 feet from these rocks. Once the release made it downstream these rocks were underwater.

The windup...

...and the throw!!!

(notice how far the splash is)

Ryan put on Mommy's crocs to wade in the river with Daddy. This water is about the same as the other river. COLD!!!

Here we found a great spot to stick in our feet.

Waterfalls at the cabin

Just a short hike takes us to these two great waterfalls. It takes a LOT longer to get out of the driveway than it takes to walk to these from the park in town.
Part way up the trail there is this huge rock in the river. It continued to be a good spot to stop and take a couple snapshots.

This river has lots of people riding tubes all the time. If you look just over Ryan's right hand you can see the head of one such person. It is important to note that this water is a consistent 64 degrees year round. bbbbuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!