North Carolina - from the inland to the Crystal Coast

Saturday, 29.05. Winston-Salem to Atlantic Beach (North Carolina)

At 9:00 AM, we are back in the car and heading towards the coast. Our destination is initially a place called New Bern, a town founded by Swiss and Germans on the coast, at an inlet of the Atlantic.

We drive on I-40 and then we are on I-70 heading to Smithfield. Shopping at the Premium Outlet - well... After 2 hours, I have eight underwear, a blouse and a sweater, and a luggage scale that looks like a meat hook, but it's great for weighing bags so you don't have any unpleasant surprises at the airport.

Somewhere along the way, we have something to eat and then we arrive in New Bern, where it looks nice and where there is supposed to be a 300-year celebration, but there is no beach and there are only 3 hotels that look very expensive.

It's almost 5:30 PM when we drive to Beaufort (we have passed places with this name about a hundred times on this trip). The place is located nicely on the beach and we are looking for a hotel. Everything is fully booked. It's Memorial Day Weekend. Very unfortunate. The place looks very nice, with old houses, boats in the marina on the small promenade, and small shops. Nothing to be done. So we continue and go back on I-70 to Morehead City. But there is nothing there that convinces us.

We drive over the bridge towards the Atlantic, towards the so-called Crystal Coast, to Atlantic Beach. We turn north onto this barrier island and immediately find a motel that sells us a room with a water view for $149 plus tax. It's 7:30 PM and we've had enough. The price doesn't matter, it's not cheap, but we want to stay here for two nights. It's just too bad that the room is completely uncleaned... So back to the reception, the guy is unbelievably slow. He enters all of my data again (phone number, address, car number plate, passport details that he just entered for the dirty room) just to change the room. Instead of a water view, we now have a view of bushes, but on one side we can see the sea and on the other side the lagoon. Unfortunately, the room is on the first floor, so we have to carry our things again.

The room is okay, although it is spoiled by a pretty kitschy decoration with fishing nets and colorful shells. We later learn that these are private apartments that are rented through the hotel when the hotel rooms are full.

Below us, some people are getting ready for a barbecue party. This weekend, around 30 million Americans are traveling and enjoying a long weekend with extensive celebrations. There is a barking dog in the room next to us...

We drive a few more minutes up the island to the north, but the coast is soon overgrown, so we turn around and go to a waterfront restaurant for dinner. Beautiful sunset. We are at the hotel at 10:00 PM. The dog is barking...