Days in Rodanthe: Day 2

 Ben got in about 10:30 pm and went straight to bed. We all slept well. I was up with this lovely sunrise making breakfast. The point of getting LibraryAnn was to have a kitchen on wheels, and while I don't care for the daily routine of cooking at home, I do have fun in my little portable galley.

While Jessie took Franklin to the dog park, I returned to Bodie Light House with Ben. We got this shot from an observation deck at the end of a long boardwalk. It was a good chance to catch up with him and his first view of Bodie.

We decided to grill burgers and pack them along with fixin's for a picnic lunch at the Hatteras
Light.  Since I was not focused on pulling a trailer, I

could enjoy the scenery and was even more impressed with the fragility of these barrier islands. At some points, the sound was a couple of car lengths to our right and the dunes to our left encroached on the road with the ocean just beyond. There was considerable road construction and an obviously temporary bridge in place where the DOT had decided to bridge a new inlet rather than try to fill it in. An amazing dedication keeps the road open.

As we drove south towards Avon and Hatteras, we began to get an idea of the extent of flooding caused by the recent hurricane. For miles, both sides of the road were lined with piles of rubbish waiting to be hauled away--duct work, flooring, insulation, furniture, mattresses, toys--people's homes and livelihoods destroyed.

We stopped for lunch at the Buxton Woods picnic area

at the base of Hatteras Light. After that we wandered the grounds and gift shop. Jessie and I purchased National Park passports with a dream of visiting many more and having them stamped. As we walked across the way to the old light house location we were all nearly crippled with sandburs, particularly Franklin. Ben carried him to the pavement beyond and I fetched the car.

From there we drove to the end of the Island and the Graveyard of the Atlantic museum. There is a monument in the parking lot to General Ambrose E. Burnside's visit to Hatteras during the Civil War.  He was my grandfather's great uncle. I also have a Quaker ancestor from Yanceyville meeting. Maybe that is why North Carolina has always felt like home.

 On the way back, we hit the Food Lion in Avon for some fresh shrimp. I came to North Carolina in 1976 to enter a graduate program at the Bowman Gray School of Medicine in Winston Salem. A friend from Chicago who grew up on NC military bases told me I would hate NC but love graduate school. Well, I lasted a year at Bowman Gray but have yet to leave NC. I did enjoy several camping trips with other students that year, including tent camping on the Outer Banks. It was my first trip to the Carolina coast and I remember eating shrimp boiled in pickling spices at a picnic table, smelling the fresh sea air and tossing shrimp shells to the gulls. I don't think I'd ever tasted anything so good and wanted to do boiled shrimp for Ben and Jessie.

 We had a wonderful meal of shrimp, flounder, slaw, sour dough bread, corn on the cob, and later, marshmallows cooked over the grill.

Ben and Jessie took Franklin to the beach near our camp site to try to fly their kite (and get Franklin tired enough to sleep well). The sunset over the sound was just so lovely, I did a whole lot more gazing than dish washing. Eventually Venus appeared and so did the kids. They traded a very tired Franklin for me and we went back in the dark to fly the kite with glow sticks tied to the tail and then burn sparklers in the sand.

It has been just the trip it needed to be--family reconnecting in this beautiful natural world, away from the daily cares, over good food and good times. Back to reality early tomorrow as Jessie works tomorrow evening and Ben and I need to prep for Monday.

We will leave too early to get our passports stamped at Bodie--guess that means we will have to come back...

Days in Rodanthe: Day 1.5

 I left work on Thursday at noon. Jessie and I both had the slows so it was 3:30 before we pulled out. Our goal was modest, a campground in Four Oaks east of Raleigh. We took the "southern route" to avoid Raleigh and it's heinous traffic--US 421 to Buies Creek then I95  north to US 64 and east.

As tired as I was, hitting the open road just seems to peel layers of stress away. The truck and trailer feel like a happy team. We were cruising 421 just south of Raven Rock, about 40 minutes from Four Oaks, when we heard an odd noise.

We apparently have a very good guardian angel on duty. The truck wasn't jerked around, no equipment was damaged, we found a reasonably safe pull off, and we didn't get hit dismantling the back tool box to liberate the spare tire. And we had one of Greg's old channel locks to help with the job. AND a  kind deputy pulled over in time to do the hard stuff. We found air within a mile to fully inflate the spare and crept into Four Oaks.

Did I sat "Bates Motel"? Things looked a lot better in the morning, but when we pulled in, not so much. I joined a discount club and decided to stay in one of their campgrounds for the night as this was just a pass through. The campsites were part of a trailer park/cheap motel/RV park. The place looked a little rough at night, especially with odd Halloween decorations. At checkin, the clerk gave me a bath house key and a warning to lock the door behind me. He didn't have to say it twice. To their credit, the baths were very clean and I am sure we were fine, but we just might not be back.

The next morning we were up very early. The only tire place in the area was literally just across the interstate from our campground. We were there when they opened at 8a. Ronnie'a Country Store is a fascinating place.

It looks like a very large BP station. In reality, it is a 24 hour grocery/hardware/farm store with biscuits and coffee, Pointer brand work clothes, groceries, plumbing supplies and very much more. The building beside it sells tires and livestock feed from the same storage area. The issue with my tires was age (I was planning to replace them at the end of this season). They set me up with three new tires for about half what I expected to pay and did it in less than 30 minutes while Jessie and I picked up some better tools.

So off we went to Rodanthe and a couple of side trips. We made a stop in charming Tarboro where we all took a walk in the historic district. We walked beautiful tree lined streets past gorgeous old homes, including this one elaborately decorated for Halloween.

When we got to Columbia, we got out to walk again on a boardwalk through a Picosin Swamp--The Scuppernong River Interpretive Boardwalk. Sleepy with lunch, Rodanthe seemed to be getting further and further away.

We finally crossed the Alligator River into Manteo and were on NC 12, the Outer Banks highway. I am reading a just published history of NC 12 and am awed by the trouble and dedication involved in keeping this highway open. The way sand is deposited around these fragile barrier islands, they continually are moved to the west. In addition, great storms, like the recent Matthew, open and close inlets, continually redefining island boundaries and where the road and bridges must be located. Without a functioning NC 12, the only way to drive on the sandy Outer Banks is to drive at surf's edge with a receding tide.

We did stop to admire the lovely Bodie Island light house and chat with the gift

shop clerk who said the worst storm damage was south of us, yet to be seen. As I write this, we are comfortably parked at the Camp Hatteras RV Park with this lovely view of the sound out our back window. We have enjoyed supper and seeing the sun set out over the sound. We are snug and warm, safe on our new tires and waiting for Ben to join us for a day of adventure tomorrow.

Nite nite!