Four Oaks RV Park, Four Oaks NC

We pulled out of Avon right at 9:00 and hit the road, hoping to avoid the crazy Memorial Day weekend traffic.  The first 45 miles of the trip were just driving north on the island.  On the south side of Nags Head is the bridge to Roanoke Island and the highway west.  We saw a lot of RVs heading south as we were driving north.  

Traffic wasn't too bad going our direction, and we took our time, stopping at a couple of rest stops along the way.  We pulled into Four Oaks just before the 2:00 check-in time.  This park sounds a lot better in its description than it really is, but it's clean, with pull-through sites, which is always nice.  I think there are enough things nearby to keep us busy for the weekend.  The main reasons we picked this park were that it was a good distance from our last park (we don't like to drive more than about 4-5 hours when pulling the RV), and we could use one of our RV discount cards to stay here... Half price is good!

Just a few pictures.

Narrow spaces, but pull-through!

Our "next door neighbors".  Looks like we'll be safe!

Pretty flowers between all the sites.

Our route for today, to give you an idea of where we are.

Buxton and Hatteras

Today we decided to check out the Graveyard of the Atlantic museum in Hatteras, which is clear at the southern end of the island.  When we went to the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, we read about all the ships that have sunk right off these shores, many, many at the hands of German U-boats.

On the way down, we passed through Buxton, where the Orange Blossom Bakery and Cafe is located.  The Orange Blossom is home to the Apple Ugly, an amazing treat we had been told about.  

This thing was like an apple fritter on steroids!

Pretty ugly, right?  But when you break it open...

Oh my goodness!!  It's a good thing we decided to just get one and split it!  So yummy though!!

We drove on down to Hatteras and the museum.  The building is pretty cool looking, kind of shaped like a ship.

I have to say, I was a little disappointed with what they had inside.  This was cool... The original light from the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, which had been sent off to get repaired at one point, and was misplaced forever.  In the meantime, a different light was sent to be installed after repairs to the lighthouse were made, and eventually that one was replaced with a more modern light. Years and years later, when a man did some research, it was discovered that the light they thought was lost was the one that was sent back to the lighthouse.  It had been stored right under everyone's noses, and no one realized it.  Now it's at this museum.

They really didn't have a whole lot about the ships that were sunk out in the Atlantic.  They did have this bell.

They had quite a large display of Civil War memorabilia, a history of scuba diving display, a display about fishing... (and you were not allowed to take pictures in that room) but really not a lot about the shipwrecks at all.  Kind of underwhelming.

As long as we were at that end of the island, we decided to walk the beach for a bit.

I thought maybe we'd be able to walk to the very end, but we finally gave up and turned around.  Good thing!  We would have had a ways to go! (The museum is where the red mark is).

On the way back we stopped for grocery supplies, because we'll be taking off in the morning.  Not sure about the wisdom of traveling on Friday of Memorial Day weekend, but hopefully, most of the traffic will be headed towards us.  We've also heard a storm could be brewing out in the Atlantic, possibly headed this way, so maybe our timing is just right.  For today, it is warm, sunshiny, and not a cloud in the sky!

This evening we took our last beach walk for awhile... We'll be heading inland, and won't get back to the coast until after Christmas.

These were a couple of surfers we saw this evening.  It's been fun watching the surfers, kite boarders, and wind surfers.  Apparently this is a big area for all of those activities.

I don't know why I feel such an attachment to the ocean when I grew up in the south and Midwest... But I feel like I belong here!

We stopped at Oceanas again tonight for dinner.  One of the drink specials was called a Mermaid Martini, so I had to try that!

Another special was called the Shark Attack.  Both were very good!

Brad had a Bud Light... Shocker, I know!  We liked the glass it was in.

Brad had a tuna steak sandwich for dinner.

I had what they called a Tuna Griller.  It was on a tortilla, with cheese, tuna, black beans, corn, onions, and tomatoes.  So good, but I could only eat a couple of pieces before I was full.  Good thing I keep Brad around!

Tomorrow morning will be "so long" to the Outer Banks, but I have a feeling we'll be back.  It's a very cool area!

Hanging out in Avon

We decided to take it easy today and just do a couple of beach walks, and we'll maybe take in some local talent at the open mic night at the bar on the corner.

The beaches here are really beautiful.  The sand is squishy to walk on, not hard packed, even where the tide has come in, so it's a good workout to walk on it.

There aren't any huge condos or hotels anywhere that I've seen all along the Outer Banks, at least here in the southern half, and there are lots of access points for the public scattered between the houses, so there aren't places where hoards of people are gathered, just scattered along the beach where they have walked out from their houses.

The shells aren't real plentiful... Lots of scallop shells mostly, and broken pieces of shells that have been tossed and tumbled so they seem like smooth pottery or glass.

We took a short beach walk this afternoon, and then ended up at Oceanas Bistro just down the road for dinner.  

I got the sampler platter, with mini crab cakes, wantons, shrimp, fried pickles, and a couple of wings.  Everything was so good!  They had several varieties to choose from for the wings, and one of the locals told us the best ones were the dry rub wings, with Old Bay seasoning.  Oh yeah, they were good!

Brad had a plate of the wings, with fries.  It was wings night there... 65 cents a piece!

They make a mean Mojito there too!

We decided to call it an evening after that.  The open mic night would be fun, but it doesn't even start till almost bedtime (9:00).  Ha!  We're getting old!

Kitty Hawk, Rodanthe, and Bodie Island

Today we drove up to Kitty Hawk to see the Wright Brothers Memorial.  It's a National Monument, so we were able to use our National Parks pass to get us in free!

This memorial was so cool!  We've been to and seen a lot of cool places, but Kitty Hawk actually gave me the chills.  Maybe because my dad was a pilot... I just kept imagining him seeing all of this, and how cool he would have thought it was.

The monument that has been erected is at the top of the hill where they first tested their gliders.  At that time there wasn't any grass.  Just a very loose, very high sand dune.  The brothers liked the area to practice, because they wanted soft sand to land on, but that meant hauling their glider to the top of the hill more than a thousand times for practice.  They would do this dozens of times a day.

This is the monument from the side.  I'm guessing it was done on purpose, but I never heard it mentioned or read it anywhere... But I think it looks like the tail of a modern plane.

This is looking out over the path that they flew their gliders.

The monument from the back side of the hill.  When the monument was being talked about, just in the planning stages, local people planted grass all over it so it would be more stable to hold the monument.

There's a metal sculpture capturing the moment the first motorized plane takes off.

Here I am, just hanging out with Orville.

From the back of the plane.

Brad too.

There were just a few witnesses to the first flight, and they are depicted here also.

The guy who took the photograph of the first flight had never used a camera before!

Here's Brad being inappropriate.  Big surprise!

If you can zoom in on this, it tells about each of the guys who were there.

Twelve seconds that changed the world!

This is cool... There's a very small landing strip that parallels the first flight paths of Orville and Wilbur.

We even saw a plane taking off from there.  How cool would that be?

Because the ground was so sandy, they build a metal rail that the plane would balance on and ride on till it took off.

This is the spot where each of the 4 flights that first day took off.

There are monuments showing how far each of those first four flights went before landing.

This is the shed where they worked on and built their gliders, and then planes.  This was the workshop for the first couple of years, and the brothers stayed in a tent.

They later converted that to their cabin when they built a slightly bigger workshop.

After touring all around the grounds, we went inside where a ranger was scheduled to give a talk.

A replica of the glider they first practiced with, off the side of the hill.

And this is a replica of the plane.  The front is on the right side.

This was our ranger guy.

There were pictures all over the walls of the visitors center, of people who had made significant contributions to flight.  The ones that caught my attention the most were Amelia Earhart, of course, having lived in her hometown of Atchison, KS; one of Mr Beech, Mr Cessna, and Mr Stearman, because those were common names in my house growing up with a small-plane-pilot dad; and the one of the Apollo 11 astronauts, where it pointed out that their landing on the moon came a mere 66 years after the Wright brothers made their first airplane flight... WOW!!!

I thought this was cool. A piece of fabric and a piece of wood from the Wright brothers' first plane was taken to the moon on Apollo 11.

On the way to Kitty Hawk, we drive through Rodanthe, so I had Brad pull over so I could get a picture of The Inn from the movie Nights in Rodanthe.

The current owners were big fans of the movie, and wanted to buy it, but it was sitting dangerously close to the water.  So they had it moved a little inland, and have taken great pains to decorate the inside exactly as it was in the movie.  In the movie, the inside scenes were filmed at a studio.

This is the house as it was photographed for the movie.  You can see why it needed to be moved!

On the way down to Avon, we crossed this rickety bridge while towing the fifth wheel, and I actually held my breath the whole way across.  It did not seem stable at all!  We had to cross it again today (twice!).  Since we've been here, we've found out that until a couple years ago, it was not needed, but a recent hurricane made a new waterway in the island, and the lower half was cut off from the upper half.  This bridge is an old surplus army bridge, and was brought in temporarily.  Construction on a new bridge is underway, but until then, this is what you have to cross.

On the way back from Kitty Hawk, we decided to go check out the lighthouse we noticed on the way down, the lighthouse at Bodie (pronounced like "body") Island.  It has "only" 200 steps, but after yesterday, we decided to just take pictures.

The lightkeeper's house.

There was a walkway out to the water, so we decided to follow it.

We watched this crab scoot around in the water for awhile.

This bird did not seem to be having fun slogging through the marsh.

Looking back at the lighthouse from the gazebo.

It was a fun day!