Cape Hatteras National Seashore

Friday, October 14, 2022 WARNING: This is super long with about a million pictures and it’s so long you might think it’s the never ending post.

After surviving Norfolk VA, 3 tunnels and some more tolls, we made it to Cape Hatteras National Lakeshore, that was another challenge in itself. Nags Head and Kill Devil Hills, miles and miles of shops, malls, condos, apartments, and houses, 2 lane road 45-50 mph. Oh, and don’t forget the stoplights.

We’re further south than intended when we left Indiana, in fact we’re so far south that we passed a couple of cotton fields today. I can’t find the pictures Mary CLAIMS she took, so you’ll just need to take my word for it.

We have 2 nights book in Oregon Inlet Campground. WOW, super skinny roads and extra small sites, lets just say you have zip, nada for any shade, and NO privacy here, you can hear conversations from 2-3 sites away. And it’s full.

Surf fishing is very popular and you can drive out on the beach for miles in search of the perfect spot for beach fishing or just hanging out. The sand felt solid, so the only real issue is remembering where the passes are to get back to the main road, the dunes all look the same.

I’m sure in the summer it’s very crowded.

 

 

Today, Saturday, October 15, 2022

The main thing on the agenda today was to tour the Wright Brothers National Memorial. That’s in another post.  After touring that, we drove over to Roanoke Island.  Sounds familiar, but you can’t quite place it, Roanoke and the lost colony, also the place of the first English child born in the New World –  Virginia Dare born in 1587. There was also a small civil war fort on the site.

Well, I guess we need to decide what we’re doing tomorrow, we don’t like to make plans tooooo far in advance.

Other photos from today, the picture of the fish is a flounder that was caught in a small crab trap that wasn’t much bigger than the fish.

We also stopped at the Bodie Lighthouse, it’s closed ( for the season?) like a LOT of things, so we didn’t get to climb it.

Sunday October 16

Pulling out around 9:00 we were #4 in line at the dump station and there were more than 4 behind us when we left. Lots of people were leaving today.

Working with the  idea we came up with yesterday, this morning we moved around 55 miles further south, along the way we stopped at a couple of places where people were kite surfing. It must be fun because of all the people out there, but to me it looked like a fair amount of work. The water is kinda cool, so everyone had on full wet suits. They were all on the intercostal side, you could tell where all the popular spots were from the road. You could see all the kites zipping around.

The kites have a blowup rib that keeps them open to catch the wind.

 

We’re not far, a couple of miles, from Cape Hatteras Lighthouse which we stopped at earlier and spent a couple of hours hanging out in the parking lot because we arrived before we could really check into the campground. Again with skinny roads, but the flat level campsite is not much wider than the van. Who ever was staying here before us must have been here a month with a small dog based on all the dog crap everywhere.

In 1999 over the course of 23 days the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was moved 2,900 feet inland due to erosion concerns. It’s still functioning, also because it started working around dusk.

Sunday pics

Monday October 17 2022 Talk about nerve wracking!!

This morning we leisurely pulled out of the misquote nest to head on down the road. We made a quick stop for a stroll along the ocean, then we drove the few miles to the free ferry terminal. We ended up first in a line and hoped that that would put us first inline one the next ferry, no such luck they had us load next to last. Super tight squeeze, of course it wasn’t straight on, nope had to almost get the van to bend in the middle to get us where the woman giving directions wanted us. The van has proximity alarms and they are going off  on all sides as I inch along. I thought the woman giving directions would never give me the ok signal to stop. While it felt longer, I think the ride was only about 40 minutes. Getting off the ferry was easy. It was easy and interesting getting off because there is no real ferry terminal, you exit the ferry and your on a 55 mph road, then it’s about 12 miles to the other end of the island. I almost forgot to mention that it’s not even close to being a straight line from one island to the next, we zigged and zagged to get out to more open water, then the same thing coming into the landing.

Once we made it to the Island of Ocracoke, we made a few stops to play in the water. At one of the stops at first I thought I was rich when and found real treasure in the ocean, turns out it was just a quarter that had been in the water for a while. I can read everything on it but the date. I knew before I reached it that it wasn’t gold because the waves were moving it around to much for it to be to heavy.

 

At the southern end of the island site, the town of Ocracoke, same name as the island. It’s a small tourist town of corse, but much smaller, and most of the traffic is rental golf carts and bicycles. It’s so small it doesn’t have a stop light.

We almost never eat out, but today we stopped at Jasons, a roadside joint at the edge town. I had Drum fish and Mary had Tuna, pretty sure both were caught that morning, they were good. I had a choice between the Drum or Blue fish, the waitress said she preferred the Drum:) so that what I had. Then we managed to save room for desert, Mary had Coconut Cream Cake and I had a slice of Key lime Pie, it was pretty good, but frozen solid, it was brain freeze cold and hard to cut with a fork.

 

Last stop before heading to the campground was the still in use Ocracoke Lighthouse, not open to the public. Built in 1823, it’s the second oldest lighthouse that’s still in use in the US. It’s 75 ft tall and at the base the walls are 5 ft thick. The light in this light house doesn’t rotate, it just shines 360 degrees.

On the drive from the ferry we made a few stops to play in the ocean after all we’re on a very narrow island with water on both sides. Mary took several pics of me, I’m pretty sure she was hoping to catch me getting knocked over by a wave. We also walked out to the ocean from the campground, the wind was blowing pretty good by then picking up sand and blowing it around, when we got back my glasses were covered with a very fine dust.

 

Tuesday, October 18, 2022 I heard it’s snowing in Southern Indiana & the town here is going to be 75, I wish we could stay here for a few more weeks.

Another day another ferry, did I mention that Ocracoke Island can only be reached by Ferry? This ride cost $30 and will last about 2 hours & 15 minutes, the water is wavy so we are rocking and rolling. While we’re staying in the van there is a 2 story lounge on this boat. We were one of the first on and they parked up right in the center. But that’s actually the back of the boat, we’re watching where we’ve been. We’re heading for the mainland to start heading back to Indiana.

2 hours and 15 minutes later we’re magically on the main land heading northwest towards Indiana.

Unless we finds something special this will probably we the last post until we start traveling again HOPEFULLY in mid November.

Congratulations you made it to the end