Herbs and Spice and Everything Nice

Hey everyone! As promised, I am back with yet another post. I didn't post yesterday, because Dale and I decided to take the day to go rambling. It was such a gorgeous day that we couldn't resist. The foliage was beautiful and bright....I love Fall! We drove up towards New Bern initially, and from New Bern we drove to Morehead City and Beaufort.
I have always wondered about downtown Beaufort. We drive through the outskirts of town frequently on the way to the Cedar Island Ferry, but we've never gone down there before. I was pleasantly surprised! There are TONS of gorgeous homes(I am a sucker for historic architecture) and shops....hehehe. Antique shops, gift shops, clothing shops, novelty shops. Fabulous stuff. And restaurants for when you get hungry from shopping. Definitely my kind of place. Also just across from the Beaufort waterfront is Carrot Island. We were able to see some of the famous Shackleford Banks wild horses which apparently swim from the Banks to Carrot Island regularly. It was pretty cool.
Here are some of the homes we saw in Beaufort. I didn't have a camera this time, so I just pulled pics off the internet for ya'll:

Gorgeous! I could just drive around all afternoon and look at the houses. I wish I could find pics of the best houses; they had several that had the most amazing gingerbread trim on them. From what I read about the history of the architecture, most of the historic houses in Beaufort were heavily influenced by colonial Caribbean design. The last picture I posted is a prime example of this. It dates from the 1700s.
And the shopping! Ah, shopping! I love to investigate antique stores, little gift shops, novelty stores and such (THEY HAVE A SPICE SHOP AND A GARDEN SHOP! Hehehehe). Now I have to save up some mad money and go wandering up there for an afternoon. Definitely going to investigate when Mom and Dad are here for Thanksgiving. I needed to find another little shopping district to putter around in. Here's a small sampling of the shops in downtown Beaufort: