OBX

As most of you know, we spent the week of August 7th-14th in Avon, on North Carolina's beautiful Outer Banks. It was Chris and myself's first trip to OBX and Kate's fourth. The weather was wonderful the whole week except for one rainy Tuesday. We rented a cozy yet roomy beachhouse about 100 yards away from the dunes. We literally could wake up in the morning, throw our swimsuits on, and walk down to the water. The beaches were not near as crowded as the ones I remember frequenting while growing up on Florida's gulf coast. Most people would leave their beach chairs and unbrellas semi-permanantly parked in the sand, with no real concern of them disappearing.

We left on Saturday the 6th on the 12 hour drive to Avon. Our poor Civic was loaded down like a camel trekking across the Sahara. With our three bikes were strapped onto the trunk, the bike rack was so weighed down that it left a permenant pressure dent in the bumper. The drive seemed to take forever, though hills and greenways and long stretches of sand dunes. We drove through West Virginia, where Chris made jokes about the 'hillbillies' that he saw dining at a local favorite, "Biscuit World". You know you are in hilljack country when the most popular chain of restaurants features buiscits and gravy. Nothing against West Virginia, though. It's very pretty country, and their toll-booth collectors are generally nice and accomodating to travelers such as myself who sometimes forget to keep cash on hand for the toll roads.

After winding through the hills of W. Virginia, we crossed the Alleghenies and dropped down into Virginia. I don't think I've ever driven through a state that was so green. We finally ended up stopping in Richmond for the night. I barely slept, as I had this creeping fear that someone was going to drive by and steal our bikes off the car in the middle of the night. Fortunately, when we awoke on Sunday, they, along with my newly dented bumper, were intact.

From Richmond, we headed south through Newport News and Virginia Beach. We stopped briefly in Williamsburg for some much needed Starbucks, then continued our journey into North Carolina. The last stretch of road seemed to be endless. From Nag's Head, we took Hwy 14 down through Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills (where the Wright Brothers acheived flight), over the long Oregon Inlet Bridge, and through several small beach villages on the tiny strip of land called Hatteras Island. We finally arrived in Avon around noon and asked to check into our cottage. The cleaning crew still had not been through the house and our check-in time was officially supposed to be 6 PM. Somewhat disappointed, we took off to the beach and did a little shopping at the local surf shops to pass the time.

The first night we spent grilling out and hanging at the house. We bought some nice steaks at the local Food Lion supermarket and cooked them up to perfection. They were wonderful. After dinner we started our quest to watch the enire Lord Of the Rings DVD series over the span of the week. I guess you cannot escape geekdom even when away on vacation. Chris had watched bits and pieces of the series but had never really gotten into it. However, as the week passed, he seemed to really like the movies, even more than Star Wars. On Monday, we headed to the beach for a day of relaxation, running back to the house between infrequent rain showers.

Tuesday we spent indoors for the most part because of the rain. We did get out and see some of the other towns south of Avon, and had some really sweet desserts from a small bakery in Hatteras. We considered riding the ferry over to Okracok, but decided not to.

The rest of the week was somewhat sunny, so we spent most of our time at the beach. We did, however, drive up to Kill Devil Hills later in the week to visit the Wright Brother's Museum, and the massive Wright Brothers Monument overlooking the ocean and the sound. On Saturday, after a morning of climbing up the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, we spent one last afternoon at the beach, and my cell phone became a casualty to the incoming tide. Just as well, we had planned on turning them off shortly anyway.

We drove home Sunday, leaving at 5 in the morning and arriving back home at a little after 5 in the afternoon. Not a bad drive if done all at one time. It was nice to come back to our house.

Below are some photos from the trip.