Driftwood Motel in Cedar Island - let's just say it had that rustic feeling
We were the only ones in the dining room for breakfast - maybe because it was so early but more likely because the place was pretty much empty
Waiting in line to take the 2.5 hour ferry from Cedar Island to Ocracoke Island on the Outer Banks. The ferry is located right next to the motel. Luckily the ladies in Beaufort the night before told us that the ferry left at 7 am because the brochure we had said 7:30. We would have missed it.
Helen helps Adam out of the van so he can walk around
A sunrise ferry to the Outer Banks - doing stuff like this is what it's all about for me. There's no touristy herded cow feeling here.
Derek didn't share the same feeling and slept most of the way
Some Mommy time
Approaching Ocracoke Island - a favorite anchorage of Blackbeard the pirate
The ferry boat
Whale skull in front of the visitor center
Once you get beyond the village where the ferry departs, the island is pretty deserted. You can pull your car over almost anywhere and cross the dunes to access beautifully deserted pristine beach.
Another 40 minute ferry heading north to Cape Hatteras
The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum had all kinds of neat things to see
The original Fresnel lens of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse was removed by the Confederacy in hopes of thwarting a Union Navy landing
An original German Enigma machine recovered from one of the many shipwrecks near Cape Hatteras. We never knew there was so much German U-Boat activity so close to American shores.
Cape Hatteras Lighthouse with it's distinctive paint job
Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kitty Hawk
We found all the park ranger led tours on our road trip to be very well done and informative
Depiction of the 4 flights that fateful day. The first 3 (denoted by markers on the left) were pretty short but the last one went all the way to the far tree line, 852 feet.
I liked how the place was so big - plenty of room to move about unencumbered
Replica of the famous glider. We would see the original later on our road trip in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington DC.
Helen was driving and made the spur of the moment call to stop at this place and it was perfect. The weather was beautiful as was the setting. A perfect evening.
I would take pictures of the map and magnify the image using the camera so that I could see what was going on. The eyes aren't what they used to be.
Wednesday June 2, 2010
We were up about 5 am so that we would be ready to take the first ferry over to the Outer Banks. At breakfast I talked to the same disheveled worker that checked us in the night before. He talked about how the place was pretty deserted, but that it had thankfully been packed the previous weekend for Memorial Day and the weekend before that. He said that the town was not what it used to be and most people left for bigger and better things, but that the motel hosts lots of bigwigs from time to time for hunting and fishing junkets.
We were in line pretty early for the ferry because we heard that it can get filled pretty quickly. The two and a half hour ride over to Ocracoke Island was beautiful - just as I had hoped. Derek slept for most of it and Helen read her book some, but Adam and I had fun walking around looking at things.
In Ocracoke we went to the visitor center and then toured around the cute village. We drove north and things got pretty desolate. We pulled over at a break in the dunes and walked through the break to a beautifully pristine beach where we took off our shoes and strolled in the surf. Derek pointed out how perfect the beach was for skimboarding if only Mommy would have let him bring his skimboard. She thought the van would be too crowded - it wasn't. Bad Mommy.
We drove north to the end of the island and took another 40 minute ferry to Cape Hatteras, which was more developed. We really enjoyed the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum and learned a lot about the area.
We drove to the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse and enjoyed the visitor center and other exhibits. We weren't going to climb the lighthouse because you had to buy a ticket for a scheduled time, but it wasn't too crowded and we figured it was a pretty unique experience.
North of Cape Hatteras the area starts getting more developed until you reach the height of development in Nags Head, which is where the intersate from the population center of Raleigh-Duram connects to the Outer Banks. We found Nags Head to be pretty congested and the architecture in general on the Outer Banks to be very rustic. Someone else explained that it was like a lot of beach towns along the northern coast. I think we prefer cute and colorful like the southern coastal towns.
North of Nags Head is Kill Devil Hills which is where the Wright Brothers actually made their first flight, but newspapers got confused because the telegraph announcing the achievement came from Kitty Hawk a few miles north. So Kitty Hawk is where the Wright Brothers Memorial is located. We found the memorial to be pretty simple, but well done and worth the visit.
It was getting late and we had hopes of making it to Williamsburg for the night, so we decided to take the highway back over to the mainland and leave the Outer Banks area north of Kitty Hawk for another time.
Helen made the call on the restaurant for dinner and it was a great call. The sun was setting and it was a perfect evening for dinner on the deck next to the water with all the nice boats anchored nearby. While we were having dinner a couple of black amphibious boats with Navy Seal looking guys idled slowly up the waterway and waved. I don't know if they were protecting something or just out for some maneuvers.
We had a nice drive north towards Norfolk and saw lots of pretty waterfront towns all lit up for the evening with their lights glistening off the water. In Norfolk we drove through a cool underwater tunnel on the way to Williamsburg.
Once again we pulled into Williamsburg close to midnight. A lot of times we don't know exactly where the hotels are in a given town so we just drive around. I like looking around anyway, but Helen eventually tires of driving around and gives me that "find a hotel now" look. Every night in a new hotel was wearing on us so we decided to stay in Williamsburg for a few days and relax a little.
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