March 19, 2013

That time we went to Tree Hill for Spring Break (sorta)

Helene in Between

Our Saga Continues..
This is the recap of our spring break trip to Wilmington, NC to see some of the locations filmed in One Tree Hill and Dawson's Creek.

The next day, we knew we wanted to go back to the river court in hopes that they would actually be filming. Just our luck, they were!! We pull up to what was vacant the night before, to find the lots filled with trailers, cars, and more semi trucks!



The story you are about to hear will forever be known as "How Megan got Ashlyn's SUV stuck in mud that smelled like poop."  And just as you probably guessed, No, she still hasn't completely forgiven me for it.

I couldn't find anywhere to park on our first round through the parking lot, so I decided to take this little side road expecting to find either a place to turn around or another parking lot. Much to my dismay it was just a long road.. I was filling a little ballsy, and decided I'd just do a 4 point turn in the road instead of driving all the way to the end, especially since I didn't know how far it would be till I found a respectable place to turn around. I encouraged everyone in the car to cover their eyes, and I went for it.. well, for a split second, until the wheels submerged into what looked like perfectly solid ground into what actually was swamp mud. At that point, all you could hear was the engine revving and the tires spinning this gloriously smelling goop all over the side of the car. --Queue the profanities-- So I did like any country bumpkin' would, I looked for the 4 wheel drive switch, which again to my dismay, didn't exist.. My last option was to just kick it into a low gear and hope for the best. Well, I moved.. deeper into the mud. At this point, I was panicking  as of course was Ashlyn, who about this time bailed and said "I don't care how, but you are getting it out yourself." So here I am, left alone in an suv in about half a wheel deep without 4wheel drive. I was expecting to have to call a wrecker, but then I remembered, I am in the South and there are very big trucks back at the film site, and one of them was BOUND to have a chain, right? Luckily, being raised as a hick paid off, and I was able to spot a truck with a wench about 200 yards away! Long story short, he was a nice southern gentleman with roots in Atlanta (and a nephew who went to Ashlyn's rival high school) who helped pull the car out.. Horray! I am finally able to catch up with my peeps and continue our adventure!

Now back to our feature presentation

So here is what we saw during filming at the river court! They were working on a basketball scene where Skillz was teaching Jamie and Chuck how to play and do trick shots.. or something like that?


Recognize these cars?!



Things were getting kind of slow, so we decided to go see what else there was to see in town, and come back.
This was the storefront for Karen's Cafe and later Brooke's store, Clothes over Bros




For all of you die hard fans, you may recognize this as the original Karen's Cafe in the pilot episode, which is actually adjacent to the better known cafe

This is the local community college, they film a lot of the classroom scenes at the high school here. 

The church where Lucas was "supposed" to get married

Tric!!

I mean, seriously, how cool is that sign for tourists?! and no, there wasn't really a show there.


Brooke's house

Lucas and Karen's house

Lucas's door

Peyton's house

Just a few doors down, you could find Haley's parent's house. 

Nate's house when he still lived with Dan.

About this time, we figured things may be happening back on set, so we went back over the bridge to see if we could catch some "supa-stas"

Quin

These are actually Chuck and Jamie's little/big brothers. Notice how they are dressed just like their siblings.



Haley!



And queue the rain, so we decided we had enough of watching, plus we had appointments for massages across town :) which was way more interesting anyway.. So we knocked out the last few land marks we wanted to see besides the beach house, but that was another 45 minutes out of town, and we didn't feel it was worth the trip.

The infamous bridge from all of the opening scenes


Naley's House. 

After our absolutely incredible massages (and my nap) were over, we went by the CW studios to see the sound stages and all of the cars used during filiming (From the highway of course). We went to a cool little burger joint and pigged out for dinner. I wish I could remember the name of that place. It was just that good. 
The rain was getting worse, and it just so happened to be the same night as One Tree Hill came on, so we went back to the hotel room. Watching the show after seeing all of the locations in person was actually really weird, but even more cool. In the show, you'd think that all the places are like within a mile, 2 mile drive, but let's just say that in real life, Lucas would not have been walking from his house to the river court whenever he felt like it. What a haul!

The next day was our last day in Wilmington. We got up for brunch at the Dixie Grill. Better known as the place where Sam Walker would hang out at. I had the BEST BLFGT (Bacon, Lettuce, and Fried Green Tomato!) Biscuit you could even imagine. This was my favorite stop of the entire trip. It was THAT good!


So we checked out the remaining places downtown, and got a few last second souvenirs.

You may recognize this as Leery's Fresh Fish from Dawson's Creek or the Market from OTH

Peyton's favorite CD strore

This was from the location from the Swinging Donkey episode

How pretty is this?

Like I said, this should be pretty familiar if you watched either OTH or Dawson's Creek

Well that's our trip! We left and drove all the way back to Milledgeville to start back to classes the next day. Bummer :(

..and I just finished all of this really great recap and remember that we actually took this trip during Fall Break. It took me forever to figure out why Connecticut was traveling with us, but now it makes sense. How embarrassing. 

2 comments:

  1. LOVE this! I've actually met the little boy who plays Chuck a few times...his grandmother used to always come in to our Hallmark shop and he'd usually be with her. His mom & sister buy all their Vera Bradley there too lol

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  2. holy CRAP. so INSANELY jealous that you were able to do this!!!!!! i'm so excited though i stumbled upon your blog and found this though! i am actually planning a trip to NC this summer and this is on my list, even though they aren't filming anymore or offer the tours.. ill just find them myself. this is so cool.

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