North Carolina Zoo, Asheboro NC March 29-31, 2019

Tammy and I met family and friends at the Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park in Ashboro, N.C. to visit the Zoo. Our first camping trip of the season and the 3 hour drive from Wilmington was uneventful and we arrived around 6:30pm. Setup was easy and we had no water leaks from the past cold weather season of storage!

This Jellystone Campground is new and the bathhouse and pool are still being built. Full-Thur gravel sites, full hookups and good WiFi. No cable as of yet. They have a nice ranger station and playground for the younger ones at the front section of campground and fishing pond and cabins for rent at the back. They also rent golf carts and paddle boats

This will be a nice campground when they complete everything. My only complaint for the weekend was the dust from vehicles driving into the campground.

I would recommend this campground if you are coming to the zoo and it is less then a 5 minute drive and they give you one FREE adult pass per site.

Weekend weather was great, nice sunshine and a warm Saturday for our visit to the zoo. It rained for a short period before daybreak Sunday morning. Thankful for no rain during pack up time and our noon departure back to the Port City.

There address is 964 Crestview Church Road, Asheboro, N.C. 27205  336-964-0813

Be sure to tell Yogi hello!

The Zoo!

Some fun facts about our zoo.  It is centrally located in the heart of N.C. and is the world’s largest natural habitat zoo and one of only two state-supported zoos in the US.   It contains 2,600 wooded acres, with 500 of those developed.  It has over 1800 animals from more then 250 species primarily representing Africa and North America.

We arrived around 11:00am and the first parking lot was full, so we continued to the next which was really closer to the entrance. It was filling up and they parked us on the grass.

Being that it was mid-morning the lines at the front gate were long. We had our NC Aquarium passes and they are accepted for entry, so luckily we’re directed to a shorter line and got in pretty quickly. If you go to the Zoo, I would highly recommend that you by your tickets online. The long lines are for buying your tickets on site.

Plan to spend the day at the zoo, it will probably be crowded so it takes time to get up to the places to see the animals in their natural habitat. The place is huge, so it takes awhile to see everything and take advantage of the trams.

The food is expensive, and the day we were there the service and wait time for your was terrible. Part of our group had to wait 45 minutes to get there order. Luckily Tammy and I got popcorn and a pretzel and didn’t have the long wait. Hopefully it was because of springtime and they hadn’t planned on the large crowd. I spoke with a volunteer who said they had over 9000 visitors the Saturday before. Someone said that the website advises that no food is allowed to be brought in. However I did see folks having picnics with home grown snacks.

The zoo is neat, I enjoyed seeing all the animals and exhibits and the open ranges where the animals we able to roam freely. My favorites were the giraffes, polar bear and harbor seals, they were cool. It was so crowded at the seals that I couldn’t get any pictures and didn’t get any good ones of the polar bear. He was so cool.

Time ran short and we moved faster though the last 1/3 of the animals where we could get back to the campground and take care of our fur babies.

We had “happy hour” before supper where we grilled hot dogs and hamburgers for the group and enjoyed more time with friends and family.

We really enjoyed the nice weekend and visit to the North Carolina Zoo and seeking fun and sun!

Thanks for visiting our site and check back often!!

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We Have Snow In Wilmington NC

Fort Fisher rocks

I understand that we have not had snow in Wilmington since 2002.

Weather man has talked about a winter mix for the last week.  A system coming up from the south, running right along the coastline.  Forecasting for bad weather east of I-95. This is our 2nd winter in Wilmington and last year’s was pretty mild, which we really enjoyed.

This winter has been colder, we have had lows at night in the 20’s and a couple days of only high’s in the 30’s.  Historically all our bad winter storms come from the south.  When the weatherman says it’s coming the the south, we all perk up and buy the milk and bread! Oh, have you ever ate a milk sandwich?

Tammy checking out the fresh snow

The system was to be in our area on Wednesday afternoon starting as rain/freezing rain and sleet.  All this was to turn to snow after temps dipped back down Wednesday night.  This is a fast moving system and was forecasted to be finished after midnight.

I work at the Federal Courthouse downtown Wilmington and we got the word to shut it down at 2:30pm  It was cold and cloudy all morning, looking like it was gonna snow any minute.  When I left the building at 2:35pm it had started raining. About 4 PM it turned to sleet and then freezing rain and windy. Checked outside at 10PM and it was snowing!

Woke up on Thursday to sunshine and about 3 inches of snow on the ground. Tammy and I got out and walked around the neighborhood, it sure was pretty.  I cleaned the snow off the Jeep and we took off for the beach!  Went down to Kure Beach and Fort Fisher checking out the sights. Sure don’t see ice and snow around the beach much here.  A lot of folks out enjoying the sunshine.

So with the cold temps, it gonna take a few days for the stuff to clear out, usually our snows fall one day and gone the next.  Don’t think this one is gonna leave that quick.

We are ready for warmer weather.  Thanks for visiting our site and please come back!

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