Hi everybody! We're home from the Outer Banks in North Carolina! There's a lot to recap, so I'll just try to give you a brief sketch of what our trip was like. (And you can click any of the photos to enlarge them.)
Wright Brothers National Memorial: They had some interesting stuff there, but the park ranger who gave the talk about how the Wright Brothers figured out how to fly bored us to sleep. They did have a replica of the plane, though, so we learned how they were able to "drive" it. Mostly I left there thinking, "the people who knew these guys must have thought they were out of their minds until they succeeded... and then, maybe still." It does make you stop for a minute to realize how far we've come with flight in under 100 years, though.
Kill Devil Hills vs. Nags Head: Having never been down to OBX before, Billy and Patti spent a lot of time trying to decide on the best place to stay. As a whole, we found that Nags Head had bigger, fancier houses than KDH, but our oceanfront condo in KDH was really nice. It also stuck out farther than the buildings around it, so from our balcony we could see a long way down the beach in both directions. Kitty Hawk seemed like a step down from KDH. We also headed several miles north to Duck, which looked like a cool little town even though it's situated on the sound side of the "island" rather than the ocean side, but the traffic up there was so bad that we didn't even make it to Corolla, the northernmost town. Initially I wanted to head all the way south to Cape Hatteras, but after reading that the lighthouse is currently under construction and surrounded by scaffolding, I figured we could pass.
Running on the Beach: I went for runs on two different mornings, right after sunrise. I loved it! I could hear the ocean even over my headphones, and I liked being able to walk out into the water after I finished my run. On the first day, I ran barefoot, which I learned as a bad idea after I got blisters on the bottoms of my toes. I can say for sure, though, that regular beach running would help you develop some awesome calf muscles.
Beach! Almost everyone raves about the Outer Banks, but a few people told us that the beach was narrow and rocky. The beach out front of our condo was great, though. It was fairly narrow, but it never got too crowded, so that just meant we didn't have to walk very far to get to the water. I did find that some areas were very rocky or especially narrow when I ran along the beach, but the note inside our condo said they had a "push" after the last big storm, so I think that must have made a big difference.
Waves and Sun: The weather was in the upper 90s for the first two days, and this caused upwelling (which Billy explained to us), so the water was very, very cold. This made for two shorter days at the beach on Monday and Tuesday, since it was too hot to sit in the sun for an extended time and the water was too cold to get in. On Wednesday it was rainy, so we drove around and did some sightseeing, but Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were pretty nice. It was in the 70s and 80s, and the upwelling stopped, so the water warmed up. I really enjoyed sitting out in the sun, and I got a lot of reading done!
Activities: We spent most of our time at the beach, but we also checked out a few of the sights. We attended the Lost Colony outdoor play on Manteo Island, and though I wasn't really sure what to expect, I quite enjoyed it. I learned enough about the Lost Colony of Roanoke to make me want to look up the historical facts online, so I could tell you all about it now! We checked out a few surf shops, which I always enjoy visiting, and found some good souvenirs. We played the mandatory beach getaway game of miniature golf, and Billy was kind enough to play poorly enough to ensure that I did not have the worst score in the family. (I don't know when I got so bad at this. I used to excel at miniature golf. At least I did get one hole in 1.) We also visited the Nags Head Fishing Pier, where we saw the most elaborate fishing set-ups I've ever seen. I thought one guy had caught several fish until I realized the ones I thought he had caught were just bait. It reminded me of the scene in The Old Man and the Sea where we find out how precisely he takes care of his fishing lines. I didn't know you could do that off a pier!
Tennis: Yes, I went away during the second week of Wimbledon. Even worse, I did this with a full expectation that Andy Roddick was going to win the title this year. I'm not exaggerating here-- I truly believed he was going to win it all. Billy planned ahead to make sure the condo had a decent TV and cable. I planned to set aside some time on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to watch Andy's matches. We'd talked about coming home Saturday night in order to be home in time for Sunday's final, even though checkout was not until Sunday. But... Andy lost on Monday to Yen-Hsun Lu, someone I've never even heard of. In only the FOURTH ROUND! I. was. crushed. And then Wednesday was rainy, so I would have had plenty of time to watch his quarterfinal match. Instead I watched Federer lose to Berdych and Djokovic manhandle Lu. I was thankful to be at the beach when I was dealt this crushing blow so I could forget about it more quickly. Watching Nadal hit the cover off the ball in the final made it feel a little better, too. I don't think I could have stood to watch anyone else raise the trophy. I mean it; I would have had to turn it off. Only a month until the Legg Mason!
I think that's about it as far as what we "did." I really enjoyed getting away and spending some time with the DePriests near the ocean. I love being at the beach because I like sitting out in the sun, but every time I go back I also remember how calming I find it to be near the ocean. The repetitiveness of the waves and the permanent presence of their sound really mellow me out and help me to think about things from a different perspective. I've been "off" of school for over a month now, but this single week at the beach did more to help me calm down and recharge than all that previous time off did. I even got some work done for the class I'll be teaching in the fall, and that helped me start to get excited about making the switch to teaching. Only one month left in the office!
Oscar's glad we're home, too! Now he can recover from his week at Camp Nancy!
(On the Beach is a novel by Nevil Schute about what people in Australia do when faced with the knowledge that nuclear war has killed the rest of the world and is coming for them next. It sounds kind of depressing but I really enjoyed it when Mrs. Hartfeil assigned it to us our senior year of high school. In fact, the girls and I took a photo of ourselves reading On the Beach on the beach at Outdoor School. Luckily, I have no expectations that Andy Roddick will ever with the Australian Open, or we might have the makings of On the Beach II when we are in Australia next year.)
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