June 2024 in Wilmington
Spending 2 Weeks in Wilmington, NC | Driving from Wilmington, NC to the Blue Ridge Parkway | June 2024
We spent the first week and a half of June in Wilmington, NC. The first week was for Curtis to attend a conference, and the half-week was for training. We tried out a new hotel for our time here, and it ended up being our new favorite place to stay that isn’t downtown (which we just haven’t figured out how to make work with the van). We stayed at the Residence Inn in the Landfall area, and with that came a lot of new restaurants within walking distance that we hadn’t tried before. The room was spacious (we even had a balcony!), the breakfast was good, and Charlotte enjoyed sniffing around a new area. Thankfully the heat wasn’t too bad this week, though we still didn’t spend excessive time outside or make Charlotte go for long walks.
Since we’re such big Wilmington foodies, here are all the places we enjoyed eating during our time here:
- Cheesesmith for gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches
- El Mariscal for Mexican seafood
- Thai food from both Big Thai and Indochine (everyone raves about Indochine and this was our first time trying it — they’re both good, and Indochine does have a cool vibe, but we honestly prefer Big Thai!)
- K38 Baja Grill for more Mexican seafood
- Nicki’s Steakhouse & Sushi for sushi and hibachi
We had several group dinners as well, and had fun catching up with Curtis’ colleagues after our month off. We spent a couple evenings downtown for group dinners, and overall just enjoyed a little bit of time living the “suite life” in the air conditioning. By the time the week was up, we were just as excited to get back in the van for a few days while we made our way North for Curtis’ next assignment.
We had 4 days to make an 11 hour drive, and our first day of driving was the longest, going from Wilmington up to the Blue Ridge Parkway. Along the way, we stopped at Hyco Lake near the NC/VA border for lunch and a short walk in the woods. After that, we crossed into Virginia and got some new counties along the Southern border.
We chose to spend the evening camping in Rocky Knob Recreation Area along the Blue Ridge, our third time returning to the area. As always, it had plenty of sites for us to choose from, and the cool mountain air was a very welcome change from the heat on the coast. We relaxed at our site, went on a short sunset hike, and enjoyed some leftovers from Big Thai for dinner. It was good to spend some time in one of the many places we call home; it was even better to be back on the road!
