Cliffs of the Neuse State Park

June 2025 in Wilmington, NC | Road Trip to Cliffs of the Neuse State Park & Greene County

It had been 10 months since our last visit to Wilmington, NC together, and I was actually looking forward to coming back this time around. We were returning to a hotel that we liked in a nice area, close to lots of restaurants that we enjoyed, and after a chilly couple of weeks in the Northeast, I was ready for the sun. We checked into our hotel on Sunday and settled in for the next week and a half. For the first week, Curtis attended a conference, then the half week was mostly meetings and some training. Overall we enjoyed our time here together, and the weeks went by quickly — it helped that Curtis only worked up to 8 hours each day, so we had plenty of time to enjoy together.

Over our weekend ‘off’, we decided to go on a little day trip to get Greene county, which was causing a hole in our map. On our way up, we stopped at Cliffs of the Neuse State Park to go for a short walk. This park resides along the Neuse river, and as the name implies, contains some high cliffs along the side of the river. However, the park is actually on the cliffs, so there isn’t a way to see them…but we still got out and went for a walk, making the most of our day. We walked down the trail to the side of the river, contemplated making a loop but decided to return the way we came. After our walk, we went to the visitor center, where Curtis got stamps and I sat with Charlotte in the shade. When we were ready to leave, Charlotte decided we needed to go for another walk, so she led us a little ways up another trail before we persuaded her to return to the air conditioned car, with the promise of a hot dog on our way home. After tagging the county (which didn’t really have much we were interested in doing) we stopped at a Cook Out on our way back, and were honestly surprised by the amount of food we got for the amount we paid. And true to our word, we got Charlie a hot dog, which she scarfed down and then helped us polish off our burgers and chicken nuggets. All in all, it was a successful outing, and made us feel like we accomplished something with our weekend.

The only other noteworthy thing about our time in Wilmington was the food. We tried several new places this time around. While with Curtis’ colleagues (who are into more fine dining) we went to Bluewater Grill and Bridge Tender in Wrightsville Beach, Rumcow downtown, and True Blue in the Landfall area. On our own, we returned to favorites like Baja38, Nikki’s Sushi, and Vicious Biscuit. But best of all, we found the BEST poke that we’ve had on the mainland, which most resembles the poke we enjoyed while living in Hawaii. It came from Pipeline Poke, and the chef there also lived on Oahu so he really knew what he was doing. We ate there multiple times and now we have a new reason to enjoy returning to Wilmington!