[North_Raleigh_Guy]

My wife and I were inspired by this thread and decided to check out Topsail Beach yesterday. We had a great visit. It took us about 3 hours to get there from North Raleigh taking I-40 to NC-210 to NC-50. It was a very quiet beach with just a few people. We found easy free parking just feet away from where we were sitting on the beach. We did not see many options to eat at the end of the day, but from PDXMom's post above I can see we missed a few spots! We ended up stopping at a place in Surf City called Sears Landing Grill and Boat Dock. They had a great covered outdoor deck overlooking the Intercoastal Waterway where boaters would dock their boats and come in for a bite to eat. We watched our waitress get dropped off at work by boat! By this point in the day my camera had run out of battery juice, but here are a few pictures from our trip to Topsail Beach (taken 8.24.08).

We hopped into the car and headed out of Raleigh down I-40 towards the coast.....



... and in just under three hours I was staring at this from my beach chair!



Some pictures from Topsail Beach, NC