Calabash is a small fishing town just over the South and North Carolina border. According to local folklore, Jimmy Durante and his entourage stopped to eat in this sleepy fishing village in 1940. He struck up a conversation with Lucy Coleman who was 28 and running the restaurant at the time. According to her daughter, as Durante was walking out of the restaurant, he turned and said Goodnight Mrs. Calabash to Lucy. Soon after that, the popular entertainer began signing off his radio shows with a similar message and to this day, locals insist that he was talking to their very own Lucy!

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Calabash also prides itself as the Seafood Capital of the World because of the town's Calabash-Style seafood which is lightly battered and fried. There is a fleet of shrimp boats that call Calabash home and according to Debra, Larry and Al the fried shrimp were delicious.

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Before we even ordered, a basket of hushpuppies, fried cornmeal, was placed on the table. They were yummy but certainly not diet food! According to Larry, the name hushpuppies is often attributed to hunters who would fry some cornmeal and throw it to their dogs to hush the puppies.

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Our friends took us on a tour of the beaches along the Strand. While in Ocean Isle I took the opportunity to dip my feet in the Atlantic.

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Brookgreen Gardens is a 9,100-acre sculpture garden and wildlife preserve. The gardens were founded by Archer Huntington, stepson of the railroad magnate Collis Huntington, and his wife Anna Hyatt Huntington to feature sculptures by Anna and her sister Harriet. It was opened in 1932 and is built on four former rice plantations. This sculpture, named Diana of the Chase, stands in the middle of a pond in a prominent place in the gardens.

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All of the sculptures in this section of the garden were of children. I just loved this cutie sitting among some beautiful chocolate tulips.

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This Diana, also known as Diana of the Tower, is an iconic statue by sculptor St. Gaudens. It was once a famous New York City landmark as it sat atop the tower of Madison Square Garden and now sits majestically above this pool in the gardens.

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Although it rained on and off during our day at the gardens, we totally enjoyed the experience. Here Debra, Larry and Al are standing among a few of the 1700+ pieces of sculpture on display and in storage at Brookgreen.

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We took the shuttle to the domestic animal zoo on the property. Here we followed the path which led us to enclosures housing foxes, otters, and gators as well as a cypress swamp aviary and a birds of prey aviary.

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Throughout the zoo, we also got to see 12-larger-than-life Lego brick sculptures that were created by Sean Kenney. This hummingbird feeding on a trumpet flower used over 84,000 lego bricks to build!

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Another of the beautiful lego sculptures.

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