Evenin' Campers!
Greetings from the Outer Banks... the waaaayyyyy outer banks... specifically, Ocracoke Island, NC.
I
think today's dispatch is mostly about the day's trip which began at
First Landing State Park in Norfolk, Virginia. Im not feeling much like
ranting, raving, complaining or criticizing tonight... although
something snarky may flow to the blog without me seeing it approach
until it hits the Internet.
I think I have to
declare Norfolk the most humid place I've ever been, or at least
noticed. That means it ranks above Singapore (Which I believe translates
from the original Malay as "sauna at dawn". It's the only place I did
business where your suit can become drenched in sweat during the short
walk from the hotel lobby to the taxi that pulls up under the hotel's
awning). It also ranks above Charlotte Amalie in the Virgin Islands
where you don't need to tell a new business associate that you have
flown in to meet with them... they can see it on your brow and feel it
in your handshake. Norfolk was so humid that when I went out at dawn to
take pics my camera lenses fogged up to the point I couldn't use them
without wiping the fog off between each shot. That would be unremarkable
if we had the trailer closed up last night and the air conditioning on.
We had the trailer windows open and my camera was out on the table.
Everything was the same temperature +/- a fraction of a degree and that
was just enough to force the moisture in the beach air to condense on
any surface including the lens of the camera. It was humid.
I did get some pics, though as the sun rose. Here's a shot of sea oats with the pink glow of dawn in the background:
So
we packed, made the mandatory stop at "ye olde dump station" (even with
the colonial touch of First Landing State Park you can't take the stink
off that duty) and we were off, heading south! Sunday morning traffic
was light and the trip was smooth as we set the GPS to the gateway to
the Outer Banks... Kitty Hawk. Here's a line no one has ever uttered
"Half the fun of the Outer Banks is getting there!". The trip was
boooorrrrriiiinnnggg. Not much to see on that route however the draw of
the day's activities kept us moving. We stopped for supplies and dropped
$113 at Harris Teeter on "essentials" which included goat cheese,
chocolate bars, six kinds of Indian food, dental floss and a bag of
ice.... oh, and Diet Coke which keeps the trip from overheating on warm
days or cold days or just about any days. On we went to our first stop
where we also prepared lunch... the Wright Brothers Memorial at...
class?.... did anyone say "Kitty Hawk"?.... well, that's incorrect. The
Wright brother's first flight was at Kill Devil Hills near Kitty
Hawk. It's lucky their first flights were short because apparently their
sense of navigation was so bad that even they didn't know where they
were at takeoff. In modern navigation terms that's called "a sure fire
screwup" and guarantees that landing will not be where you intend it to
be. Their mistake is actually understandable, since: Kill Devil Hills
didn't become its own incorporated city until the 1950s; it is
the next town south of Kitty Hawk; and the Wrights probably couldn't
bring themselves to send a telegram that read "JUST MADE FIRST POWERED
FLIGHT AT SOME PLACE THAT HAS NO NAME YET stop TELL PRESS stop BE HOME
FOR CHRISTMAS stop O&W ". But if you want to see the most hallowed
ground in aviation, don't stop in Kitty Hawk to look for it.
So,
what did we see at first flight central? It is amazing how the
magnitude of the accomplishment they achieved there is dwarfed by the area in which it took place. The Wrights made three flights on December 17, 1903. Each was
longer than the prior one. The National Park Service has thoughtfully
reconstructed the Wright's hanger ("shed" says it better) and
workshop/quarters (I think the Unibomber patterned his living quarters
after the Wright's... And certainly, Orville and Wilbur are in no way
related to Frank Lloyd). Here is a pic of that:
They have a replica of the 1903 "Flyer" and an earlier glider in the visitors center. It looks like this:
They
have also erected a huge monument at the top of Kill Devil Hill and
three stones to show where each of the three flights on that first day
landed. Here are the stones followed a pic looking the other direction of the first stone with the monument way up
there on the hill:
Now, it would be easy to
believe that the three flights ending at these numbered stones began up
on that yonder hill... right? Wrong! All three began at the rock just
beyond the first stone. That's right. The first flight was 120 feet
long. 40 yards. A distance college quarterbacks can easily throw a
football with accuracy. 120 feet that changed the world.
After
lunch we continued south... into the Hatteras National Seashore. Most
of the drive is unimpressive. The moving map on the GPS told us we were
on a very narrow spit of land, sometimes only 1/2 mile. Most of the time
the road is sunken between dunes that block the view of either the
Atlantic Ocean to the east or Pamlico Sound to the west. Occasionally
those views are available and are spectacular... Especially on the Pea
Island Bridge which came up suddenly and was gone before a pic could be
snapped. The towns which started as modern beach kitsch (mini golf, DQ,
cheap national hotel chain, etc) to the north became more funky and
beachy to the south. Only when we reached Cape Hatteras was their a
clear modern town with full services. We saw Hatteras Light from a
distance. This is the iconic lighthouse of the Outer Banks. Tall,
tapered and painted in a helix of two navy blue and two white stripes,
it helped sailors to avoid becoming permanent residents of "the
graveyard of the Atlantic". We agreed we'd stop to take a real pic to
share with you, our blog friends, when we got closer. We never saw it
again even though we drove through Hatteras and later took the ferry
from Hatteras to Ocrakoke. What the hell? We thought lighthouses were
tall and painted in high contrast so they could be seen from far and
wide! Not this one! I'm not sure why North Carolina needs an invisible
lighthouse but as far as we could tell they have one.
At
3:40 we pulled into line for the ferry from Hatteras to Ocracoke. I
asked a few questions of the attendant who reacted as if he had heard
those questions so many times before that his ears were connected
directly to his mouth - bypassing the brain - and the answers simply
flowed from a reflex action. Here's what we looked like waiting in line
with the other Ocracoke-bound vehicles:
While
the cars were placed on two rows on the port side and two rows on the
starboard, we were loaded on the inside with no vehicle beside the truck
or the trailer. Here we are in place for the trip:
The
trip was about an hour dock-to-dock. Not rough, but the experience
showed that neither Puggles nor Soft Coated Wheaten Terriers were
seafaring breeds of dogs. No accidents, but both dogs were clearly
annoyed by the experience.
My initial impression of Ocracoke is that it isn't so much in North Carolina as it is near
North Carolina. Take a look at this map link which shows our precise
camping spot. Zoom out until you can see the North Carolina mainland. We
are on land, but essentially still at sea. The trip from the ferry dock
on the east end of the island to here was about 10 minutes. Along the
way we saw where sand dunes blow onto the road so often that they keep a
road grader parked ready to clear the road for travel. It was easy to
see that it gets a lot of use. I walked over the dunes from our
campground to see the surf. As residents of a barrier island in Florida
which is not dissimilar to this one, I can confirm that the Atlantic
Ocean here looks the same as the Atlantic Ocean in Florida. The sand
here is a finer grind, though. The difference between the two places is
that anywhere you go in Florida on the Atlantic shore there is obvious
sign of development. I stood on the beach here and saw.... nothing.
There were people visible at a distance and far down the beach I saw
headlights (beach driving is permitted in the National Seashore by
permit). Other than that... nothing. If you have a longing to stand on a
deserted beach come here to Ocracoke. If you come at the very beginning
or very end of the season (April to October) I'm thinking your odds of
being alone are even greater.
Here's today's panorama of a view from surf to dunes on Ocracoke at sunset:
So, boys and girls, that's it for today. Tomorrow we will explore Ocracoke Island and sample it's cuisine and shopping.
Until then....
SC'
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