Sunday, July 22, 2012

One Tree Hill fans... Be very jealous! :)

So, it's not exactly on the way to Utah, but I just couldn't leave the east coast without seeing where One Tree Hill is filmed, in Wilmington, North Carolina.  Anyone that knows me, knows that's one of my favorite shows, and I was not about to be that close to Wilmington and not take the opportunity to go there.  Since we knew we were taking a southern route home, we planned it so we would head straight south from Shenandoah to Wilmington, then start heading east through South Carolina and Georgia.  So it wasn't completely out of the way. haha.  

Can I just say that I love North Carolina?  Not just Wilmington, which was beautiful, but the whole state.  We passed through Durham, where Duke University is, and the capitol city of Raleigh.  North Carolina is definitely a place that I could spend a lot of time in.... and probably even live in.  But like I said, Wilmington was such a pretty town.  It lies on the Cape Fear River and is just a few miles away from the ocean.  There are so many old houses and churches and other buildings, and our visit there turned into much more than we expected.

We checked into the hotel on Friday evening and decided to order some pizza and map out our game plan for Saturday.  We ordered Papa John's online and right when we clicked the "order" button, the internet cut out.  So we tried ordering again and 20 minutes later our pizza arrived.  Well, a few minutes after that, there was another knock at the door and another pizza.  Apparently, the first order did go through so we had pizza for quite a few meals. lol. 

I found a website where a super-fan of One Tree Hill had compiled all the addresses of filming locations for the show.  All the exterior shots are filmed at actual houses (that people really live in) and other buildings, so we wrote down all the addresses and on Saturday we drove to them all.  I kept hoping that we would run into one of the actors somewhere.  I took my camera everywhere with me, just in case we came across someone at Wal-Mart or a gas station or something.  Seriously, I would just die if I could meet James Lafferty.  We never had any luck with that, but I did run my first ever red light because I was paying more attention to the sidewalks instead of the road.  No other cars were even around, so no one was hurt.  Luckily there were no cops around either.

Lucas's house


Peyton's House




Brooke's House



Tric



Tree Hill High School.  Not really....haha.  It's actually Cape Fear Community College.


We walked up and down the river walk to find this exact table.  



Clothes Over Bro's/Karen's Cafe  :)


We saw all these way cool places and I really wanted to see the river court, but there was a tri-athlon going on in Wilmington that day and the finish line was in the same park as the court, so they wouldn't let us drive our car over there.  We had to drive to the other side of the river and park our car, then ride a ferry over.  But because of the inconvenience for all the tourists and people involved with the race, the Battleship North Carolina was letting people on for free.  It's an actual battleship used in WWII, and now sits in the Cape Fear River.  They let people on to walk through the ship and we were glad we were able to do that (especially for free!)  My grandpa was in the navy and experienced ship-life, so it was cool to see some of the things he got to experience.


It doesn't look super huge, but it was actually really big!





Because of the tri-athlon, there were so many people at the river court.  So we just decided to come back the next day.  We got to meet some cool people though who had husbands/brothers/etc. running in the race. People came from all over the country to participate.  The swimming part of the tri-athlon is in the ocean and part of the running is along the beach, so it sounded pretty cool.  Not that I would ever do it.  : \

The next day was Sunday and we found a church to go to in the morning.  Everyone was so nice and welcoming.  I love that about the church.... you feel loved anywhere you go.  After church we got some tacos at Taco Bell and took them to the river court to eat.  That's right.  I ate lunch on the river court  :)  I'm glad we went when there were no people so that we could just spend time and not worry about the crowds.  So many of my favorite One Tree Hill moments are on the river court.  I seriously almost cried when we got there.... almost. haha.



People thought we were a little crazy for going that far out of our way to stop in Wilmington.  Well, when we were at the river court another group of girls showed up that were from Australia.  Now I don't seem so crazy, do I?  lol.  Even if I am a little overly crazy about the show, I'm glad I got to see "Tree Hill".  





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