My Dawson's Creek Adventure
This is the story of one of my trips to Wilmington, North Carolina. It began when we got up at 4am the Friday morning before the very last episode of Dawson's creek was to air on TV. We drove the 420 miles from Maryland to see the real Capeside where Dawson's Creek is filmed, Wilmington, North Carolina. We got into Wilmington around noon and we walked around down along the water front along the(Cape Fear River) historic district and got a lot of pictures along the water. The show does a lot of filming in this area so we got some shots were they had many scenes on the show. We then ate lunch at a place called the Water Street Cafe. On the show Dawson's family owns a restaurant called Leary's Fresh Fish but they actually film in the Water Street Cafe - they just put a different sign up on the front of the restaurant for filming (very cool bar)! The food was good and it was cool to see it in person. After lunch we went around town and took more pictures of filming locations which was also very cool. Then, we decided to get a little hardcore. Some of the things that we wanted to see most were the were the houses of the main characters on the show where they film a lot of the boating scenes and waterfront shots etc (not where the stars live in real life but on the show). We had found some information online about the where the houses kind of might be located so we set out in search of our targets. Joey Potter's house on the show was owned by the studio but the other houses are owned by normal homeowners who let the production company use their property for the show. Being a waterfront property owner myself I didn't want to invade their privacy so we brought our inflatable row boat . We had a street name where Joey Potter house was potentially located so we started here. We knew that Dawson & Jen's house were relatively close to the Joey's house and we figured we could try to find them from there. After a little work we found Joey's house which was Katie Holmes' character on the show. Since the show had just finished filming there were workers from the studio doing landscaping because they were selling it back to the lady that used to own the property. At first they were a little funny but agreed to let us take pictures of the house and down on the pier were they film a lot of scenes along the creek (the creek is actually the size of a small river). The lady turned out to be really cool when she found out we had come down from Maryland and when we told her we wanted to find a place to put our boat in so we could get pictures of the other houses (Jen & Dawson's) she agreed to let us put in right off of their pier. She even gave us a couple bottles of water because it was sunny and 90 degrees. On the show when Joey rows from her house over to Dawson's and sneaks in his bedroom window it seems like they are right across the creek from each other but in reality the houses are a couple of miles away. The lady from the studio tried to point us in the right direction of the other houses (on the promise that we would only take pictures from the water and not disturb the homeowners) but we took a wrong turn and went up a side creek. We were a little nervous because it looked like a great habitat for alligators and we were in a small inflatable boat. The tide was going out fast and it was getting very shallow quickly and we were afraid we were going to pop the boat on some oyster shells (many oyster beds). So despite the fact that I rowed my butt off fighting a very strong tide we had to bail while we still could! That night we went out to a really neat bar that had a dance floor on the roof and had some good food. We hung out there for a little while then just went back and crashed (we were exhausted due to getting up at 4am the morning before). Wilmington is a college town and there were a lot of college students all over who were a lot of fun! We got up the next morning checked out of the hotel and had breakfast then went over to Screen Gem Studios where they filmed the show while on the set. They give tours on Saturdays during the summer and we got to go on a bunch of sets from the show which was cool and we also got a special treat. They were auctioning everything on e-bay from the show from a bikini Katie Holmes wore in the first episode (the one she was wearing in Dawson's Sea Creature Movie -which I got to hold) right down to the row boat Dawson used on the show. They took us over to a warehouse and we got to see it all - it was very cool how much stuff they had (The Capeside High sign, stuff from Dawson's room, clothes the characters wore on the show, etc...)! After the tour was over we decided to try to find the other 2 houses from the road or someplace closer where we could put our boat in. We found a piece of waterfront property for sale in the vicinity so we posed as interested buyers and went down on their pier to scope things out. We could see Dawson's pier off in the distance so we knew we were close but we couldn't put our boat in there (his pier from the show is very distinct with a thick rope hand rail and special goose neck lights so we knew we had found the right one). We wound up driving further down the road and we went into a private neighborhood that had it's own private marina. There were no trespassing signs everywhere but we asked a lady that was waking her dog if it would be OK to launch our inflatable row boat. We explained that we were on a trip from Maryland and wanted to get some pictures of the houses where they filmed Dawson's Creek. She said "sure, no problem - If my husband was here I would have him take you out on our boat so you didn't have to row all that way" If anyone asks, tell them I said it was OK - My husband was the president of the homeowners association last year". We couldn't believe how nice she was!! We expected her to say get the hell out of here you guys are trespassing! People in the south are just a lot nicer than up north!!! So we put our boat in and set out on another adventure. Jen & Dawson's houses are near the bottom of Hewlett's Creek (Joey's house that we had put the boat in at the day before was at the top of Hewlett's Creek). Hewlett's Creek empties into a sound which connects to the Atlantic ocean. We left the marina and rowed out into the sound (Growing up on the water I am a very accomplished rower so please don't try this on your own or you could really get into some trouble if you don't know what you are doing!!) I was fighting serious wind and tide and it was 90 degrees so I was guzzling some serious Gatorade. I rowed for 2.5 hours (My friend that was with me on the trip wasn't a good enough rower to fight this tide and wind so I had to do all of the rowing!!) Finally made it around the point and up into Hewlett's Creek - We found the houses and got a bunch of pictures dodging oyster bars and submerged piles with barnacles and nails the whole way worried we were going to pop our raft!!! Because we had the tide and wind in our favor on the way back it only took a half hour! I know rowing for 2.5 hours is a lot and seems crazy even for hardcore Dawson's Fans but at some point it became more of a quest just to say we made it more than anything else! After we got back to the marina we packed it up and begun heading back home. All in all though it was an extremely cool trip and I can't wait to head back and get more pictures of stuff we didn't see.