North Carolina Day 5 - Cape Lookout

This was probably our favorite day! We headed out nice and early and rode a ferry from Harker's Island to Cape Lookout which is on one of the barrier islands off the coast.

Here's Elle on the ferry when we stopped to look at the wild horses at the Shackleford Banks island on our way out. These horses are left behind from shipwrecks and early settlers of the area. Horses are not native to the Americas, and did not live here until the Spanish came over. You can't see them very well in this picture, but Elle loves horses so she was excited to see them. Unfortunatly we didn't get to see the dolphins I was hoping to see.

Here's our veiw of the lighthouse as we were getting off the ferry. It was such a beautiful day out there too!

The dock our ferry dropped us off and picked us up on.

Closer view of the lighthouse.

The keepers house, which is a museum now.

George was not tall enough to climb the lighthouse, but Elle was very excited to see that she was! She was the only one of the kids who decided to go up with my dad, Pete and Brandon. I stayed behind and went to the beach with Katie and the kids because of my hurt leg. Elle was also given a little booklet to fill out to become a junior ranger. When she turned it in at the end, she got to pick a nice big, pretty conch shell out of the bucket they had collected and a patch so it was a pretty exciting day for her!

George and I were both sad to not get to climb the lighthouse, but we did check out the museum a little bit. This area has quite an intersting history.

And we did enjoy the beautiful views of the beach and the lighthouse.

Beach selfie!

My dad found this shell (skin?) of a horseshoe crab on the beach as soon as he joined after climbing the lighthouse.

Here's my whole lovely group.

We spent the afternoon playing in the clear water and soft sand, and looking for shells (wishing we had brought goggles!). It was so nice and so much fun!

Just me, my kids and the lighthouse.

My awesome family.

We didn't want to leave, but we had to go catch our ferry back after 3 hours on this beautiful island! (It was probably about time to get out of the sun anyway) On the way back we got a little bit of a closer view of the horses. It was so beautiful out there.