We were driving along the highway the next morning, when we noticed what looked like a theme park along the side of the road. So we stopped alongside it, noticing a few goats as well as an adorable black pig just chilling out in a pen. There were some rides, and further along, a bunch of monster trucks, all waiting to go on the various obstacle courses in this park. It seemed to be closed for the season, but it would definitely have been a lot of fun for the family to be going on these trucks, and bumping and revving along. It's always cool to see unexpected sights and attractions on the trip--it's what makes the trip fun to also experience the unexpected!
Exploring the Outer Banks
The Outer Banks in North Carolina are a barrier islands off the state's coast, separating the Atlantic Ocean from the mainland. This area is known for its open-sea beaches, state parks and shipwreck diving sites, and Roanoke Island was the site of England’s first settlement in the New World, named after Sir Walter Raleigh.
Within Outer Banks is Kitty Hawk, a beach town that's synonymous with aviation (so much so that a now defunct flying car startup backed by one of Google's founder was named after it), and the site of the first flight by the Wright brothers. In the nearby town of Kill Devil Hills (what a name!), the Wright brothers also developed their first airplane flights, and there's the Monument to a Century of Flight, with a series of pillars designed similarly to Stonehenge that detail the major milestones in aviation over the last century. Apparently the design is of wing shaped pylons, but we didn't recognize this, and thought it could have looked more obvious that it was flight related!
Corolla: Horses and Maritime History
When we visited Assateague Island in Maryland recently, we'd managed to see at least one of the famed wild horses roaming freely there. Similarly at the Outer Banks, there are Corolla wild horses left free to wander around. These horses are the descendants of Spanish mustangs left behind by explorers in the 16th century. While we didn't make a point of trying to spot them (there are tours available that focus on watching for the herds remaining), we did briefly stop in the area, checking out sights like the Whalehead Club in Corolla, a beautiful, bright yellow restored 1920s Art Nouveau style residence that is open to the public for museum tours.
Nearby is the Currituck Beach Lighthouse, an impressive brick lighthouse (there's an admission fee to enter and we opted to marvel at it from the outside). A stone's throw away, the Currituck Maritime Museum is a small and free museum that we spent a few minutes in--it's not big but there's a lot of restored historical boats, and the museum details the town's boat-building and maritime history.
Flying and Sand Dunes
Further south there's also the Wright Brothers National Memorial, where Wilbur and Orville Wright spent years working on their plane and where they first successfully flew. There's a visitor center, monument to the historic first flight spot, a commemorative sculpture, the reconstructed hangar and buildings where the Wright brothers lived. But...we couldn't visit any of it! Due to the government shutdown, the whole area was closed, although we could have squeezed through the gate and explored the area (people could pass, just not cars), however we could see that the memorial was a decent walk away. So we did what another group of folks did--drive up to the sign, take a quick photo of it, and disappointedly drive off!
Fortunately, our next stop, Jockey's Ridge State Park, was not closed. The State Park has the tallest living sand dune system on the Atlantic coast, and since it gets pretty windy here, it's a popular spot for flying a kite and hang gliding (we saw some gliders on the ground and it made us wonder if paragliders could also fly around here, provided the wind wasn't too strong). We walked down a short trail leading down to the dunes, and Sheila had a blast running up and down them--she was in her element running around the dunes at Fort Funston in San Francisco (also a popular hang gliding spot), and she may have recalled those experiences when we were here! It was lovely to be outside in nature going for a brief trek. Apparently there's a second access area that takes people through wetlands to go swimming, paddling and windsurfing, although we didn't go on this trail.
Our final stop along this thin stretch of the Outer Banks was Bodie Island Lighthouse, which was built in 1872. Standing at 156 feet tall (47.5 meters), it's painted in black and white horizontal strips, and is on the the Roanoke Sound side of the peninsula. When we were there, the Bodie Island Double Keepers' Quarters (Visitor Center and Park Store) were closed indefinitely due to internal damage from a fire earlier this year.
Heading Back West
As we headed inland, we saw the oldest vine in America, called the Mother Vine, which is estimated to be 400 years old and is believed to have been planted by either Croatan Native Americans or settlers of the Lost Colony. A local winery has planted clippings from the original vine in their vineyard and make Mother Vine Wine, a sweet, mildly acidic wine. There weren't any grapes growing when we were there (getting colder now, gotta wait until next year!), but it was cool to see all the snaking branches intersecting each other in this vine.
And then...we headed back to the mainland! We crossed the two-lane William B. Umstead Bridge, with our only stop at Krispy Kreme for Lisette to redeem her 3 free glazed donuts with a purchase (the birthday special). She doesn't really eat donuts but it was late, so she ended up having one of them while Michael had the other 3 (the purchase was his usual strawberry donut with sprinkles, which we just call the "Homer Simpson" donut because it looks exactly like the one he'd always eat in the cartoon). It was dark by the time we'd pulled into the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain in Greenville, North Carolina, which had a packed parking lot--the right side of our RV was scraped by the branches of a tree next to us as we pulled in, but at least we were now settled for the evening.
