We spent our one night at the Pecan Tree Inn, an historic Victorian mansion that has been restored and converted to a bed and breakfast. The rooms were absolutely breathtaking, luxuriously decorated in keeping with the Victorian theme (we stayed in the Country Room). The owners, Susan and Joe Johnson, were wonderful; they were willing to give advice on the various beaches in the area, as well as providing guests (like us!) with a bathroom and shower to use even after we had checked out!

Once our lodgings were fully explored, we headed to the North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores in Atlantic Beach (I'm always a sucker for aquariums!). The niftiest part of the aquarium was the outdoor nature walk, where we saw lots of fiddler crabs. The picture is a bunch of the crabs we saw crawling around in the marsh; if you look at the big picture, you'll be able to spot at least one!

On Friday, we drove up the coast a little and took a ferry to Cape Lookout National Seashore, where we got to experience the beach undisturbed by massive amounts of sunbathers and vendors of any sort. This is the Cape Lookout Lighthouse, as seen from a little ways down the beach.