Summer Road Trip Part 3--Lighthouse in the Dark

I made it to the beach in Atlantic City and spent several wonderful days with my in-laws. Luckily, our trip fell during a full moon and in the summer Cape Lookout holds special night climbs since there is extra "illumination". So my husband Jim and I signed up. We drove to Harker's Island where we caught a ferry to the lighthouse. We walked to the beach for some moon photos and then returned to the lighthouse. Rangers were stationed at the bottom of the entrance to talk about the lighthouse and the job of the keepers. 

This layout is all my own idea! I knew that I wanted to use the Graphic 45 By the Sea collection as I still had quite a bit in my stash. I looked at the pieces and started planning how I could arrange them to highlight our visit. I did a bit of paper tearing and some fussy cutting and came up with the layout you see. I entered this in a Scrapbook.com challenge on their forums and won the monthly prize of more Graphic 45 items. Since I know I have a ton of lighthouses to show later, it won't be a problem using them up!

The event included the opportunity to climb the lighthouse. I was not sure that I would be able to do it, but I had talked to a ranger the day before at the Beaufort visitor center and she assured me that I would be OK. I just would want to pace myself and stop periodically. I did that and am happy to say that I MADE IT! Jim and I took a few photos from the top but since it was completely dark out it is hard to make out much detail.

I made this layout as part of a Summer "MotherLOAD" class (LayOut A Day). We were to create a page based on a photo prompt from the leader which had a lot of tall trees in it. I thought about it and decided that the trees reminded me of the lighthouse and so I put this page together. I had a scrap of brick paper so I used that to anchor the right-side photos. Because Cape Lookout is painted in black and white I thought the mosaic background would be a good base. The red elements are from a travel pack from CM a few years ago. I feel lucky to have found that quote for the middle. Not only does it capture the event with my husband but it has the up and down arrows reflecting our climb!