On the last morning on the Outer Banks I wanted to see the sunrise over the ocean. Living on the west coast I am used to seeing the sun set over the ocean and, on the rare cloudless day, waiting for the green "flash" right before it's gone as the sun is seen through the ocean water due to the curvature of the earth. I was excited for my first sunrise and we set an alarm and got up with time to spare. We walked out onto the decks that take you down to the beach and I waited with camera in hand. There were a few other people out there who had stayed up the whole night! As we were waiting I saw some fins in the ocean, just surface and come back down. Sharks? No, those would have stayed up as they swam along. Dolphins!? Yes! There was a whole pod of dolphins just of shore and we watched them come up to the surface for air and then dive again for breakfast. There was also a flock of pelicans that kept coming back and forth over the water. Obviously it was a happening breakfast spot. Then the sky got really red... It's coming!
Then just the tiniest piece popped up!
And continued to get bigger...
Until we had a full on red sun rising over the ocean. What's that saying? "Red sun at morning sailor take warning?" Maybe it always rises red? We didn't end up having any bad weather, but there were some amazing clouds behind us as we walked the beach and I kept taking more pictures.
After about an hour on the beach we got back to the room, cleaned up and packed up and were on our way. We decided to go to the Roanoke Island Festival Park we had missed the day before since they opened at 9 and we had all day to get the car back to Raleigh. It turns out on a Sunday there aren't a lot of people there at 9 AM, so we had the park pretty much to ourselves. We walked through the native american dwelling recreations and got eaten by mosquitos pretty bad. Then we headed out to the Elizabeth II, a recreation of ships that were used during the time the first colonists came to America. It is a working ship and they've taken it down to the southern part of the Outer Banks and back.
It was quite small and would have been very cramped to bring over all the people and supplies they would need to start a colony. There were two men on there in character and they told us all about how things worked (they didn't have wheels to steer the ship, just a pole attached to the rudder), where the people would have been on the long voyage (staying in the hold and not allowed on deck and it being so cramped you'd sleep sitting up) and why it's dangerous to cook on a ship (wood+pitch+flame=bonfire!). We then moved on to the colony recreation where we had the best time! The only person there was the blacksmith, but he was quite a character. He made a square nail for Mom right in front of our eyes, which she considers the best souvenir she got. He also had a hat and armor that they would have worn and it was really heavy! We both tried it on...
He also showed us a lathe that they would have used to make furniture legs and other decorative pieces. It was a lot of fun and quite easy to use!
Then we talked a bit about the area and how much we liked it. We told him we would have to rent a "cottage" and make it through a hurricane before we'd decide to move. He said that everyone knows the categories of hurricanes but to the people that live through them they mean something different. Category 1 means you buy a 6-pack of beer and wait it out. Category 2 means you by two 6-packs of beer and wait it out. Category 3 means you buy a keg of beer and wait it out and a Category 4 means you buy a keg of beer, put it in the back of your truck and drive like hell! He also showed us the water line on the back of the smith-house that was from the height of the flooding from Hurricane Irene. He said it was such a damaging hurricane, not because of the rains, but because the winds pushed the waters from the sound out of the bay and then when they ceased, it all ran back in and flooded. We told him that from living on the west coast and always hearing about tsunamis we knew that when the water recedes out that far that it's a BAD sign. He was really fun to talk to and we got to feel a bit of North Carolina hospitality.
Around 11 we headed out of town because we were driving down to New Bern before we made it back to Raleigh. We seriously drove over half of North Carolina while we visited, good thing it was unlimited mileage on the car! The reason we were going to New Bern was to visit Mom's college friend Annie, whom she hadn't seen in 40 years! They had always kept in touch with Christmas letters and such over the years but we had never made it to North Carolina before. Not the type of people to waste an opportunity we wanted to see her while we were there. As we drove south towards New Bern we got to see a lot of the countryside. The area is very agricultural and it was fun to see things like tobacco being grown in fields on the side of the road. We got a little lost on our Google Map directions when we got to New Bern and ended up driving through the old town a bit. What fantastic buildings and architecture! Too bad it was while desperately searching for a road sign. Mom called Annie and she helped us get on the right road and to her house. We had lunch with her and her husband Stroud and got to love their two little dogs Maybelle and Paris. It was a such a wonderful visit! Mom and Annie picked up like they hadn't seen each other in a couple of weeks, rather than years and we all had fun watching the squirrels in the backyard chase each other and perform daring feats to get to the bird feeders. They have some small houses out at the back of their yard, a koi pond and lots of feeders which bring in birds I had never seen before like cardinals (SO red!) and orioles! The visit was all too short and Annie invited us to come back for another vacation and they'd take us to the lighthouses along the south of the banks that we'd missed, especially Cape Lookout. We are seriously considering it because we fell in love with North Carolina!
It was time to get the car back to Raleigh and we got to the Enterprise rental place just a few minutes before 8 PM when it was due! Enterprise called the Embassy Suites that I was staying at and we were shuttled to the hotel that I'd call home for the next week. Mom flew out the next morning and went back to work while I stayed for training. That next week was a lot of fun for me, learning new things, meeting great people and just enjoying time away from work. Watching the morning news programs was fun also since they kept you up to date on the new Iron Man movie that was being filmed close by.
More on that and what else has been keeping me busy to come!
1 comment:
Fun! And that is totally bizarre realizing those sunRISE pictures were taken in the morning, not late in the evening!
Iron Man movie, huh? EXCITING!! I <3 Robert Downey, Jr.
Congrats on your 100th post!
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