We are going on an adventure!

We finally started! We left Mechanicsville, Maryland on the 26th of November, to travel the United States, explore her National Parks Management Areas, discover obscure museums and monuments, meet new people, and create some amazing memories!

Hindsight is always 20/20. We didn’t get as early of a start as we were hoping, but we were just so excited to be on our way. When we finally reached our first Thousand Trails campground in Stella, NC, we arrived late in the night. Unfortunately, the welcoming packet that should have been outside for us was nowhere to be found and there was a coded gate to enter the campground. We tried calling the emergency number, but to no avail, so we decided to camp out in the parking lot.

Thankfully, someone came by as we were setting up and allowed us to follow them in, so we were able to get to our spot! And it was a beautiful campground! We were right next to the marsh, and birds were just everywhere. We had finally made it!

Our spot was right next to a large park that was surrounded by sand and Raina had never been on the sand before. She absolutely loved it-she kept running around with her nose dragging lines in the sand. How she didn’t impact her sinuses with the stuff is a mystery to me, but she adored it. I couldn’t wait to take her to an actual beach…it was going to blow her mind. Thankfully, we didn’t have to wait long! In between Dakota taking meetings for his job, and me doing recording sessions, we made time to visit Emerald Isle.

I have been to many beaches before, but never to one that had such huge shells! They were the size of my palm and fully intact! Dakota was getting some really great drone footage, but every time he panned to me my butt was up in the air, face down looking for more seashells. Raina loved them, too! Though she mostly just chased them around (in between bouts of dragging her nose in the sand again).

Side note: Holy crap-pun intended-it is so much easier to pick up dog poo from sand than thick grass, like, I had no idea. Game changer.

North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores

One of the insane perks of working remotely, if we have cell service, we have internet and can work practically anywhere. We put this to the test when we visited Muttagains Cafe, an adorable coffee spot where dogs are not only welcome, but they can walk off-leash and explore the store side and pick their favorite toys or treats while you enjoy your coffee.

We also tried to go out on our bikes to check out the Croatan National Forest, but didn’t get very far! As we were biking along our merry way, we spotted some orange hats dangling from some trees right off the road: hunters. We turned around and left asap, but I am pretty sure my loud laugh had already scared away any real wildlife within 50 miles…

Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center

To end our first stay, we took our kayaks out in the marsh. Originally we had planned on training Raina to ride with us in our kayaks, but the launch site had a warning sign saying not to feed the gators. With Raina being the perfect gator snack size, she had to stay in the camper.