Day 61

We made sure we got up early this morning, as we wanted to get to our destination at a reasonable time today, Wilmington on the east coast of North Carolina. This place will be the start of our drive south on the east coats towards Miami and the Florida keys. We got there at about 12:30 some 4 hours after we
left Charlotte. This place has lots to see and we wanted to try and get as much in before we left tomorrow morning. We got checked into a nice hotel on the river and then drove to the site of USS North Carolina Battleship. This was a battleship that served in all of the Pacific Ocean battles and survived and was put to rest here in Wilmington. It was a self-tour and it was fantastic, it took us nearly
2 hours to look around this amazing ship. I was amazed as to how big and claustrophobic it was. Apparently some 2000 odd crew lived on board and it must have been a nightmare, however they did seem to have everything on board from a cobblers, barber, post office and just about everything you could imagine. But the sleeping quarters were cramped and must have been extremely hot. The tour in my opinion was a great insight as to how life may have been like during those times at sea. After that we tried to get into the Wilmington Rail museum BUT it was closed just as we got to the door. So we took a walk down the river and found a really nice restaurant by the river and settled for a drink and early
dinner. After that we walked back to the hotel for an early night in.