Wilmington, NC - Coast to Coast!

Sorry I haven’t blogged in a while. I think now that the trip is finally over, I’m just in need of time to process it all and figure out what my next step is. At the moment, I am still staying with my very generous cousins, Billy, Tiahna, and Connor, as I research jobs in Raleigh and contemplate the direction in which to take my career. I figure I’m already out here on the east coast so I might as well give living here a try and see what happens. Worst case scenario it doesn’t work out and I head back west to California. The big risk and adventure of taking a road trip by myself sure paid off big time, so I might as well take another risk and try living 3,000 miles away from home, especially since I do have family nearby, which I’m hoping helps with the homesickness I’m likely to feel down the road.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to blog about my two-day trip to Wilmington, which took place July 27-28 and thus a blog is long overdue! I headed out from Raleigh around 11am on Sunday the 27th. It was a reasonable two hour trip to Wilmington and I had planned on arriving in plenty of time for the first activity of the day: a tour of the EUE/Screen Gems Studio, the largest studio facility east of Hollywood and where the CW films their hit television show, “One Tree Hill.”

I had mixed feelings about my trip to Wilmington because I had put a lot of pressure on myself to like the place, which would make a potential move there much easier as I had contemplated before and during my road trip about attempting to get a production job on “One Tree Hill” or on another production filming in the area. I think I had certain expectations of the place because of the fact that there is a big studio in town and films are constantly in production there, with celebrity actors, etc. I thought it would be a smaller version of Hollywood in some respect, and it wasn’t that at all. It’s very much a small historic coastal city with lots of toursists passing through and staying in the large houses on the beach of the Atlantic Ocean and a small population, probably just enough to run all the different businesses in town. Don’t get me wrong, there is civilization in Wilmington – there’s Target, Walmart, Kohl’s, Best Buy, and even a mall. I could live there if I wanted to, no problem in that respect. The studio is basically just another business in town, it doesn’t have that Hollywood/LA feel in the least. And right now “One Tree Hill” is the only production filming at the studio so the likelihood of being able to get a production job right away wasn’t very likely, especially since there are already lots of people who work in production and have established contacts in town that I would be competing with for one of the limited jobs available were a new film to start production in the immediate future. Thus, for now, I have decided to forgo my initial plans to live in Wilmington and will attempt to look for some kind of entertainment-related job in Raleigh, where I have family to fall back on and stay with during my search and I don’t feel completely isolated and alone.

Anyway, now that I’ve explained my current feelings and life status, let me get back to the studio tour. I made it to town in plenty of time for the 2pm tour, which really should have been called the “One Tree Hill” set tour, because that’s exactly what it was. We had the opportunity to walk through four working sets of the show, which was pretty cool, especially since I do watch the show and the scenery was somewhat familiar to me. Since I was looking for a potential job at the studio, I had hoped for a more overall tour of the facility, but I was still pleased with what I got to see. The four sets we toured were Nathan and Hailey’s house, Brooke and Peyton’s house, Tree Hill High (including the lockers/hallway, the basketball locker room, and Hailey’s classroom – the same classroom that was used for every classroom scene in the history of the show), and Peyton’s office and recording studio. Another thing that obviously would have made it better would have been cast sightings, but since it was Sunday, they weren’t filming. I did see Peyton’s old car, the Comet, in the studio parking lot though, which was cool as well.

In fact, that’s the only thing I have a picture of from the tour because unfortunately photography wasn’t allowed on the lot.

After the studio tour, I drove to the historic district of downtown Wilmington. It was extremely hot there. The town is on a river, and very close to the ocean, so I was hoping for a nice cool breeze, but no such luck. I was already there though so I endured the heat and walked around by the river and wandered in some of the cute little shops nearby. I really wanted to get ice cream, but I knew I was just hot and thirsty and it was getting close to dinnertime, so I held off and settled for an ice cold water bottle, instead. The area was actually already somewhat familiar to me because both “Dawson’s Creek” and “One Tree Hill” have filmed along the River Walk and the historic district, which is right where I walked and I love knowing that! Even though I was really hungry, especially since all I had for lunch was a frappuccino and coffee cake, I had to drive across town to the beach and finally put my toes in the cool water of the Atlantic Ocean. So that’s what I did! It was getting close to sunset so I also thought it would be neat to see the sun set over the water while I was there and then, of course, I remembered that on the east coast, the sun doesn’t set over the water, so I just enjoyed walking along the beach with the sun at back instead. It was actually very windy by the beach, which had I known that, I would have gone to the beach first and stayed a little cooler rather than sweating downtown, but now I know for next time. I collected a few pretty colored seashells as mementos of having finally made it all the way to the Atlantic Ocean and completing my coast to coast journey! What a ride!

After the sun set, I headed back into town to check into my hotel, The Baymont Inn, and finally grab some dinner! I chose an O’Charley’s because I hadn’t been to one of those yet on my trip. I treated myself to a yummy shrimp pasta dinner, a fancy alcoholic beverage with my favorite liquor of choice, Midori, and a slice of key lime pie for dessert. Mmm, mmm, I’m salivating just thinking about it!

The next day, I slept in a bit as usual, checked out the hotel, and ate a juicy burger at a Ruby Tuesday down the road. Then I headed across the bridge over the river to the USS North Carolina, a historic World War II battleship that has since been docked back in its home state and turned into a museum. What made this site particularly interesting to me was that my dad sent me photos of him and his parents visiting the USS North Carolina 35 years ago! After seeing the photos, I decided to attempt to duplicate them while I was exploring the ship. With the help of some kind individuals, I was able to do a fairly decent job. See for yourself!

The self-guided tour not only gives visitors access to the top deck, but allows visitors to delve deep into the body of the ship, traveling through a maze of doorways and hallways and cabins to the point where you have no idea where you actually are within the ship. Fortunately, they have lots of yellow arrows to direct you and let you know you’re going the right way! It was another hot day and it was even hotter below deck. Luckily, they’ve added air conditioners at several points along the tour, but even they didn’t help much in the stuffy heat of the ship’s interior. About ¾ of the way through the tour, I was practically running past the yellow arrows to get back to the top and make my way to the cold air conditioned gift shop!

Today, I decided that after two days walking around in the ridiculous heat, I had definitely earned that ice cream, so I stopped in the historic district for a refreshing raspberry sorbet at Kilwin’s Chocolate and Ice Cream. Well worth it! While enjoying my sorbet, I walked around town a little more and stumbled upon a mini Statue of Liberty near the courthouse.

I love the Statue of Liberty, such a classic symbol of America and finding this one in Wilmington was quite fitting for the finale of my American road trip!

Once I finished my ice cream and returned to my car, I couldn’t resist driving back to the beach for one more toe touch of the Atlantic! The weather and the water was much cooler today, a welcome change from the previous weather during my Wilmington stay, but I still put my toes in the water one more time! While at the beach, I managed to find yet another famous filming location – the pier featured in the opening credits of “Dawson’s Creek!” At least, I’m pretty sure it is, and if it’s not, I don’t want to know! As I headed back into town one last time, I decided to drive through part of UNC Wilmington's campus, yet another "Dawson's Creek" filming location, They used one of the buildings as the exterior for Capeside High School. Speaking of “Dawson’s Creek,” the lyrics of the theme song sung by Paula Cole sum up how I was feeling during this trip, and still feel today: “I don’t want to wait/For our lives to be over/I want to know right now/What will it be.” I really do just want to know what my life will be, it would make things so much easier for me right now!

The last stop on my Wilmington trip was the Fort Fisher Ferry terminal. They have the kind of ferry on which you can drive your car and take it across the bay of water to Southport. This was actually pretty far out of way when heading back to Raleigh, but I thought it would be something new and different since I’ve never driven a car onto a boat before! However, I had the timing a few minutes off because I didn’t factor in the 20 mile per hour two lane beach roads that I had to take to get to the ferry terminal. I missed the ferry by a minute or two. The gates were closed, but the ferry was still at the dock. I was so mad! I just wanted to act out a movie scene montage where I drive my car right through the gates, through the parking lot, and continue right off the dock, flying through the air, and miraculously landing on the ferry before it got too far away from the dock! But instead I drove to the end of the road and watched the ferry float away, then turned around and headed back to Wilmington and eventually to Raleigh, where I still am, struggling, contemplating, stressing, relaxing, hanging out, researching, thinking, playing, meditating, etc.

And that pretty much concludes the "road trip" portion of my blog. It's been an unblelievably amazing journey! I'd say I'm at a loss of words, but clearly this blog proves otherwise!

I'll continue to update it from time to time, hopefully more often than I have been as of late. Maybe I'll make it a goal of posting something at least once a week, even if it's just a short message to say hi to everyone! Now you all just have to bug me about it and hold me to it! Until next time...