[piano intro] -[Deborah] Next on North Carolina Weekend.

Join us from the Beaufort Waterfront as we explore places to stay cool.

We'll go whitewater rafting in the mountains, sample ice cream in Mount Airy and visit a new brewery in Oxford.

Coming up next.

- [Announcer 1] Funding for North Carolina Weekend is provided in part by Visit NC dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty, unique history, and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains across the Piedmont to 300 miles of barrier island beaches.

You're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.

- [Announcer 2] And by, the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

[upbeat music] ♪ - Welcome to North Carolina Weekend everyone, I'm Deborah Holt Noel and this week, we are on the historic Beaufort Waterfront Boardwalk, overlooking Taylor's Creek.

Sprinkled with shops, restaurants, and museums, Beaufort is one of the most visited towns along the inner banks.

Along this expansive harbor, you can see a ton of cool boats.

Over my shoulder is Carrot Island, where you can see the wild ponies, so much fun.

And that's what today's show is all about, having fun and staying cool in the summer.

Let's start our journey in the mountains as we follow a family going whitewater rafting at the Nantahala Outdoor Center.

- [Artist] Here we go.

[upbeat music] ♪ - The part that's really unique about rafting the Nantahala and specifically, rafting the Nantahala with NOC is that you park, you come up to the adventure center, you speak with our staff, you get ready, you hop on the bus, you go to the top, you have an amazing time on the river.

It's beautiful.

And then you end at our location where you can hang out, have fun, grab a beer, and just enjoy time with family or friends.

And I think that's a really unique part about this aspect is the environment, once you get off the river.

On top of the fact that the Nantahala Gorge is just stunningly beautiful.

It's a amazing place to be.

The whitewater is great year round, and it really is a perfect kind of intro and beginner of whitewater.

- It was really fun, but like you have to dodge out for stuff to make sure you don't hit it.

It was scary at first, but then when I got through it, it was so fun.

- We have people who come rafting with us on the Nantahala or other rivers who have never rafted before.

And they are terrified of it.

The Nantahala is a really wonderful river because it helps break a lot of those barriers.

It is in terms of difficulty, relatively benign in terms of our first time rafting experience.

It's the perfect place for somebody to join us on a guided trip with a qualified professional who really trains year in and year out to run this river and other rivers in the region.

And it's a great location for others who maybe wanna step up their game in whitewater paddling, whether that's on one of our rental trips where you can go out and rent a ducky or a raft, or with some of our introduction to whitewater kayaking courses, which do spend a portion of their time on the Nantahala.

It's really a great area for newbies and for people who wanna kind of push their skills and learn to get a little bit better and more comfortable on the water.

- It was a great experience.

So, our guide was Andrew, he did a great job.

So, we had a few spins as well.

So, it was amazing.

I also fell into the water, which was adventurous.

- We enjoyed the rapids.

I also loved the last class three finish.

- From the whole process, whether you're booking online or calling into our call center, our staff work really hard to make it really simple, to understand the whole process of showing up here in the morning, checking in, getting on a river trip, getting all the necessary gear you need.

And then we run you through a complete safety talk and risk management talk that kinda it gives you the tools that you need as an individual to operate effectively and safely on the river.

And then we get you up to the put in and we take you down and guide you down every single rapid until you take out here at Nantahala Outdoor Center.

[upbeat music] Once you get off the river, or if you're on an afternoon trip before you get on the river, we have two riverside restaurants here.

One of them literally overhangs the Nantahala.

You can sit riverside, look down at people kayaking and rafting by the restaurant and that's called River's End Restaurant.

And then our more casual grab and go riverside bar called Big Wesser, take a cabana beach bar in the Caribbean and transplant it to rural rustic Western North Carolina.

It's riverside, it's light, it's easy going and it's next to one of our new products, the treetop adventure nets, which is just a really fun place to let kids explore on their own an aerial adventure right next to the river.

While you hang out on Big Wesser porch and grab some tacos, grab some barbecue and maybe grab a coffee, tea or beer.

[upbeat music] - Me and my father, we've paddled this river for probably 15, 20 years.

And today, I'm taking the day with my fiance and we're coming out here and it's our first time.

I've got the experience, but it's her first time.

Don't be too scared, because it's a rush, but it's just class three is the Nantahala Falls, is a great rapid, and it's very safe.

But there's something really special about Nantahala that I really like.

And I think it's more or less the family atmosphere and the tourist attraction that it brings.

And just to get out here was just really great.

So far, such a great experience.

- The Great Smoky Mountain Railroad bisects Campus.

It comes from Bryson City that's where it starts.

So, train guests can experience a really scenic, rustic, beautiful train ride up past Nantahala Outdoor Center, along the Nantahala River.

It's an amazing feeling coming to the Nantahala Outdoor Center on a beautiful Saturday in July and just see how many people are choosing to venture outdoors and enjoy the river, which is something that I'm personally passionate about.

And it's amazing to see other families enjoy that in their own way.

- The Nantahala Outdoor Center is at 13077 US 19W in Bryson City and it's open daily.

To book your whitewater adventure, give them a call at [828] 785-5082, or go online to noc.com.

If you wanna stay cool by getting out on the water, there's several guided tours that leave right out of Beaufort.

One such tour is actually a cruise that takes you for a search for dolphins, sand dollars, wild ponies and sea shells.

Let's stay cool on Sea Visions Charters.

- Down here in Carter County in Beaufort, North Carolina, we call the tourism season the 100-day war, because it lasts from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

That is our high season.

That's when all the tourists are here.

So, you literally have about 100 days to make your money in the tourism industry here.

What I really, really wanted to do was to show people around, take 'em on tours, specifically of the Cape Lookout National Seashore Rachel Carson reserve.

We have so much beauty on these islands over here.

That's what I really wanted to do.

The national park service had a moratorium on their permits, which means that you couldn't get a permit to operate commercially on the national park.

They weren't allowing anymore.

Then the moratorium was lifted and I was literally on their doorstep the next day.

Today, we're going to wander out.

We're gonna go see if we can find some ponies.

First thing this morning, over to the Rachel Carson Reserve.

We'll leave there depending on what the wind does.

It's supposed to actually, lay out a little bit as the day goes on.

To affect people's lives, and to see them remember this for years.

No matter what job you do there, you cannot put a monetary value of that.

[upbeat music] ♪ Families come down here, they get away from all the commercialization.

They leave their phones at home.

They leave their video games unplugged and they come out and they experience what this world has to offer.

And especially, in this environment around here.

Not only do you have water, but you have land and you have all types of different creatures, whether they be waterborne creatures or airborne creatures or the horses.

- Oh, they're playing.

Oh my goodness they're so cute.

The wild horse is on these islands.

It's incredible to see them in their habitat, just surviving and living off the land.

Having the kids go out and have fun in the waves.

So, great to see them touching into their wild side and their adventurous side a little bit.

And as much as I love it, I'm trying to be the protective mom and keep them safe.

Look at me.

We've ran into a little snag.

There was a little plant called the prickly pear and my son, 11 years old, stepped on it.

And Captain Monty came to the rescue and he pulled the little spikes right out for him.

He didn't even shed a tear.

- Got it all out there, buddy.

- Like I've stopped, look stopped looking at what was around me to actually listen to what he had to say.

I mean, going all the way back to from Carrot Island to Cart Island to, I never knew what the heritage behind like the history behind the drawbridge.

- The last time the drawbridge got stuck open was prom night.

Supposedly, if we look back at the charts in the early days, we see this island referred to as Cart Island, C A R T, Cart Island.

The cartographers that came in a little bit later that drew the newer maps could not understand our local people.

So, we literally believe that they didn't understand what they were saying and they named it Carrot Island now.

Now, for you'd come to Beaufort back in the days, this is what we looked like everywhere.

Working waterfronts over the entire front street waterfront was there to support the fishing industry.

This is what is called dredge spoils.

The Harkers Island was originally settled by the Mormon faith.

The jelly fish, when they have tentacles, what stings you is called a nematocyst.

Interestingly enough, sea oats are not indigenous to the beach either.

So, he took the seeds from the Gaillardia and spread them all over the outer banks to memorialize his wife.

So the legend says.

I can talk about all this stuff because I've been here most of my life and was fortunate enough to sit on the docks with some of the old timers around here and listen to their stories and soak it in like a sponge when I was young.

- You cannot take away what a local can give to back to the people that come to visit.

If you get to know someone and have the opportunity there, be on a tour with someone like this gentleman, you do wanna come back.

[gentle music] - To book your custom boat tour of the Beaufort area, give Sea Visions Charters a call at [252] 732-5794, or visit them online@seavisions.net.

Of course, a really delicious way to stay cool this summer is, ice cream.

And we found a place in Mount Airy called Scoops and Such.

That's really quirky, but a lot of fun.

[gentle music] ♪ - Well, it's just a little country-looking building, sitting on the side of the highway where a little camper shell looks like, a little trailer.

It's a very unique place.

- Scoops Ice Cream has been here for 10 years.

And Vivian and I started it because we loved ice cream and we're 12 miles outta town.

- What if we're on this busy road?

What if we started our own ice cream shop?

So we decided to do that.

And we knew that we wanted to have something funky.

- So we just thought, well, if we just put this little truck at the end of the driveway and we'll be able to go out and get ice cream, and some other people might stop as well.

- Like old van bus thing.

And there's like a sculpture park around.

- It's pretty neat, kind of vintage eclectic or eccentric I should say.

And it's just neat looking.

We've been here just for a few minutes.

- [Deborah] This hidden gym is fast becoming a local favorite by serving up over 38 different flavors of delicious ice cream.

- Sherry cheesecake.

- Thanks.

- Thank you, have a good day.

- So here we are, we've got 38 flavors of ice cream and sundaes, and it seems like our most popular thing is our milkshakes.

- We have our signature Nutter Waffle Sundae, and one of the top favorites is the Banana Love Boat that we have, which is a banana split.

- [Deborah] It's not unusual to hear folks driving for miles to order their famous Banana Love Boat.

This banana split has it all.

- Banana Love Boat is, of course, a banana split in half and usually, vanilla and strawberry and chocolate ice cream.

- Lots of whipped cream and chocolate sauce and our own strawberry sauce and our own pineapple sauce.

- And then nuts, whipped cream, sprinkles and a cherry.

- It's too big.

I can't eat all that.

- [Deborah] Thanks to Chaz's love for welding.

There's also a metal sculpture garden on the property for everyone to enjoy.

- I'm a representational abstractionist that loves to sell ice cream so that I can keep on making more sculpture.

- [Vivian] The sculpture park is called Scriptures in Steel.

Using that idea, he's made a lot of different sculptures kind of telling the story of scripture.

- Okay, all of the sculptures down in the woods here have got some kind of a biblical inspiration for me.

I don't have names and plaques on a lot of them because I want people to just enjoy them as sculpture.

- I think my favorite thing about what makes Scoops different is Chaz's work all the way all in the woods and around the property.

- [Deborah] Above anything else, Scoops is a beautiful place in the country where anyone can just come and relax for a while.

- I don't know, just like have some ice cream with my kids.

It's just a nice place to be able to come and not have to worry about what I look like or what I'm wearing or anything like that.

- If you like ice cream and you like metal sculpture, we're here, come on over.

- We would love to be a part of someone being able to just take a minute and be able to just sit down and just reflect on how beautiful it is and can be.

- Scoops Ice Cream and Such is at 5091 West Pine Street in Mount Airy.

And they're open Wednesday through Sunday, beginning at noon.

For more information, give them a call at [336] 352-3113.

What better way to cool off this summer than with a locally-brewed craft beer.

Of course, we've seen lots of breweries opening, but producer Rick Sullivan discovered one in Oxford.

That is both the very first female and veteran-owned brewery in the state.

Let's visit Tobacco Wood Brewing Company.

[country music] - [Narrator] Tobacco Wood Brewing Company opened for business in Oxford in 2018.

It was the first brewery in Granville County and the first in North Carolina to be owned by a female military veteran.

It was also the immediate go-to place for the community.

- It's going really well.

I mean, obviously, we're still in our honeymoon phase 'cause we're only one month in, I think we're actually like day 34.

We exceeded our goal and it was almost entirely community based.

- The reality is it has put Oxford on the map as a destination.

- That's was really was I was hoping to happen.

I wanted to see a place that everyone in the community could share.

- It is unbelievable.

People have been talking about the brewery since Mara and Paul made the decision to go ahead with this along with their investors.

- [Narrator] Mara and her husband, Paul Shelton, are both military veterans.

They believed in a disciplined five-year plan for success, but that was surpassed in half the time.

Their Oxford location continues to thrive.

And now they have a second location just off I40 near Research Triangle Park.

- We're all very excited about the opportunity just because it's a great part of Durham.

I mean, South Durham market is growing.

There's more residential coming in all the time.

- Very quickly.

- There's there's about a million square feet of office park, right behind us here.

- [Narrator] Tobacco Wood serves up somewhere between 15 to 20 different beers.

Some of them winners of prestigious awards.

They are constantly testing new ones.

- Currently on the wall here, I think we have 17 different beers.

If you ask for style, we do them all.

There is nothing you could throw at my master brewer, Matt, that he can't make.

I was like, yeah, I don't really love that style of beer.

He goes, I can make one you would like.

And he has not been wrong yet, knock on wood.

- I just, you know, had complete freedom to do, do fun things with beer and make cool stuff that can appeal to everyone.

That was really the goal was to kind of have a beer for everyone.

And I really believe that there is a beer for everyone.

- Number nine Cackalacky is right here.

Cackalacky Carolina championship of beer that just won a gold medal.

- She wants me, it's the cherry amber.

- Cherry bourbon-infused amber ale.

- This Guavatational Pull, it's our guava stacked tower.

- And this one is Weapons of Mass Destruction.

This is our Ukraine Benefit Beer.

So a portion of proceeds from every one of these beers will go to support Ukrainian relief.

- But it's a west coast side.

- [Narrator] One thing the owners did not include in that original five-year plan was to operate a restaurant.

[owners laughing] - Literally, the first statement in the first meeting where all four owners were present was, okay, so we don't wanna run a restaurant.

And now we run two.

- We say it's like American gastro pub food in Oxford.

We call it barbecue fusion.

So not the same menu.

We made it so that each place has the great beer, but you get to try a different menu.

And there's some overlap like our staple shareables like our cheese curds and our beer pretzel that overlaps and our signature burger overlaps in both stores.

- Are you the owner?

- How you doing?

- I am, I'm Mara.

Nice to meet you.

- Patrick, nice to meet you.

So, the burger was unbelievable.

- Yeah.

- Yes.

We crushed them, they was...

It was actually one of the best burgers I've ever had.

- [Interviewer] What sets you apart or what would you like people to remember that you try hard to do best?

- We try hard to have every beer be consistent.

And it's exactly what we tell you it is.

If we say it's a bourbon barrel-infused tap, that's what you're gonna take.

All those flavors are gonna be there.

And we want it to be that across the board.

We don't want anything to be lacking.

Same with the food, we want you to come in and have comfort food, be in a comfort, everything we do, we say it's comfortable.

We want you to be able to come after work or outside playing with your kids and everybody can come and you bring your dog outside and just relax.

'Cause it should feel like home.

- Tobacco Wood Brewing Company has two locations.

Their Oxford Taproom is at 117 Wall Street and their Durham location is 2500 Meridian Parkway.

For more information, go to tobaccowoodbrewing.com.

Not far from here on the Beaufort Waterfront is Fort Macon State Park, where you'll find a restored civil war era Fort on an unspoiled shoreline.

Here, you can take a three mile walk along the dunes and enjoy spectacular views of the beach.

As we celebrate the parks and trails for health initiative, let's join two friends on a hike around the park.

[gentle music] - The weather turned out perfectly.

- Oh yes, the beach is beautiful today.

I moved here three years ago and I've always come to Fort Macon State Park to the beach.

I never realized there was a walking trail and I had some friends that introduced me to the trail.

So, my daily walking then turned into walking the trail here every day.

- [Narrator] After Melinda Bridges was introduced to this trail, she then introduced it to her good friend, Michelle Edwards.

- The trails are fabulous.

So well designed, manicured and you never know what you're gonna see on the trail.

- [Narrator] The 3.3 mile trail borders Bogues out on one side, offering marsh views.

- I like this particular trail because of nature.

It's very soothing.

You exercise for stress relief.

And I think with the birds and the sounds, it's the calming trail to walk.

I'm ready to see the ocean.

[gentle music] ♪ It's exercise.

You've got hills, it's a workout.

So you get nature, you get a workout at the same time.

And then you see the beach.

The ocean looks so beautiful today.

- It is hilly, so being here on the beach, on the coast where it's usually flat, a lot of people like the challenge of those few hills.

The trail changes as you go through the ecosystem.

So, it's a gorgeous trail.

- [Narrator] The trail surrounds the park centerpiece, Fort Macon.

- [Randy] It's amazing, it's a really neat fort.

- [Narrator] It's strategically located.

- [Randy] There's an inlet here coming into a deepwater harbor.

So, Fort Macon is built here on the tip of the island to control what ships come to the harbor and what ships leaves the harbor.

- [Narrator] The fort was built in the early 1800s and protected the inlet and harbor in the Civil War and Spanish American War with cannons that could fire cannon balls three to six miles.

North Carolina purchased the property from the federal government in 1924 and turned it into a park.

But it was back in action as a fort again, during World War II.

- [Randy] North Carolina was one of the hardest hit states during World War II, by the German side, the U-boats.

- [Narrator] Now the fort stands like a sentry over the park's beaches.

One beach borders Beaufort inland and the other borders the ocean.

On the ocean side, there are picnic tables and a beach cabana with showers and restrooms.

- A lot of things going on here with history and nature in which we're hoping it'll rub off on some of our visitors.

- [Narrator] And it has.

- [Melinda] The beach here is beautiful.

There's always something going on at the point here in the water with boats and dolphins and different things.

- [Michelle] One of my favorite places, you can go to the beach, you can step back in time and explore history.

And now, with the walking trails, you can explore nature at the same time.

- Down by the sea.

[gentle music] - Fort Macon State Park is at 2303 East Fort Macon Road in Atlantic Beach and it's open daily.

For more information, give the park a call at [252] 726-3775, or go online to ncparks.gov.

It's been a beautiful day out here on the Beaufort Waterfront.

It's a great place to stay cool during the summer.

And if you've missed anything in today's show, just remember, you can always watch us again online at pbsnc.org.

Have a great North Carolina Weekend everyone.

Good night.

[upbeat music] ♪ ♪ - [Announcer 1] Funding for North Carolina Weekend is provided in part by Visit NC dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty, unique history and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains across the Piedmont to 300 miles of barrier island beaches.

You're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.