Many more people on the beach today - notice the colourful umbrellas.

At one point, as we sat and had coffee, there were about a dozen teen-ish girls in bikinis Movin' Their Thang in unison (or trying) to some unheard music. TFS had a delivery to make to a staff person, so we had a target activity for the day. This required driving through some residential areas just inside Wilmington. Nice houses on large lots, and the first time I notice how Amazingly Quiet it is without the constant surf breaking 100 feet away.

Tonight, another attempt at the Tiki Bar, specifically Ocean Grill and Tiki Bar. We walk southward down South Lake Park Boulevard, through the shops zone and along a road lined with motels and a few shops, past Carolina Lake, and just past Tennessee Avenue, turn off through a parking lot, around to beachside and up some stairs and get a table on the land-side of the bar.

from their website.

Nice place, lively but not loud, even some kids running around having fun. We have some cheezy old-style cocktails - I'm liking coconut tonight - and salads and appies and small entrees involving seafood soak up Drinks With Rum.

We leave as they are starting to close for the night and head back north along the beach. The full moon and lights from beachside buildings makes it pretty easy to walk along. Some people go with flashlights, which from the beachhouse look like large fireflies and gives a nice sense of activity in the darkness, but we never bothered and never suffered from it. People fishing along the beach didn't bother either. Every time we've been on the beach there's been at least one little group of a couple or three guys, maybe with some friends, hanging out and fishing. Long rods pushed held by white PVC pipe pushed into the sand. Tonight, a couple guys had green LED lights on the tips of their rods, so they could monitor a hook by the LED moving in the near-dark, and keep their hands free for beer. Crafty!

We leave the beach at the Boardwalk, where the touristy shops are congregated: souvenir and ice cream vendors, a few bars, a large amusements area: pool tables and video games with giant fans trying to cool the place, a very-popular donut shop, right next to the amusement rides I saw when I first turned down the lane the beach house is on. Those pictures are actually from tonight - here they are tonight. We get some ice cream and check out the amusement park.

We rode the big yellow one

Various barf-inducing rides ran mostly empty while a light crowd wandered around eating ice cream. After we were suitably fed and watered at the Tiki Bar, and fortified with some ice cream ourselves, TFS suggests we try out the Fun House, and I suggest the big double Farris-wheel thing - could be good to get a view. A little math on the number of tickets needed, and TFS gets them from the booth.

There's a problem with the Wheel thing though. Something was stuck. We line up, expectantly, watching one fellow climb around and up and hit things with a hammer. Mostly in the area of a drive wheel. Two other carney-types watch, more knowingly than we do, we assume. Well, with the Wheel thing not wheeling anywhere anytime soon, the Fun House looms to our left, with a name that suggests more of what we're looking for than watching these guys.

The large man at the entrance only wants 1 ticket each - half price! We enter through a round tube that's probably supposed to be moving, onto a round platform we're supposed to move, up a tight round staircase, out and back in and down another staircase, past two distorted mirrors, and back onto land, Fun had. Those guys still haven't got that big Wheel thing going, and they've had a couple minutes since we left them to their wizardry. But it's a holiday, so no pressure. Not in the tire of the newly-fixed driving wheel of the Wheel thing, and it's in the process of being refilled. More fun looms.

After a few spins it appears ready for Live Human Testing, and we're first in line. A quick -clank- of a bar for our safety, and we're whisked into the Carolina Beach Labour Day Saturday night air.