our trip to the OBX

    

    Mom and I went to the Outer Banks of North Carolina these past few days, in the glorious weather of 79 degrees. It was a great time to go, as it was pre-season, warm, and many of the sights that Mom wanted to see were almost vacant. As you can tell by the other pictures, the majority of what we saw were lighthouses. Mom loves lighthouses. She really got into them a few years back, and now that I live so close to so many...a trip was in order.

    We left Thursday afternoon, after getting the oil changed on our car and the inspection done (soon I hope it will be registered in NC) and headed up to Kitty Hawk where we stayed the night. Early the next morning we drove to our first light house, the Currituck Lighthouse.

    This lighthouse is one of the only ones that is still the original brick color, and doesn't have much paint. I learned a lot about lighthouses from this trip.... the length of the light, the color and the signal all vary depending on the light house (this helps sailors know where on the coast they are). The lighthouses were thought to be unnecessary with the advent of GPS, sonar and other technologies, and so many were being decommissioned. However these new technologies fail sometimes--but the lighthouses are still there, and so their lights can still be seen every night.

    Our next find was the Bodie Lighthouse (pronunciation varies, but Mom thinks that it is pronounced 'body' not Bode-y with a long o even though that is what she has been saying)

    Between looking for lighthouses we would try and stop off at some of the little by ways available around. We could have spent many more hours exploring, but much needed to be seen, and we had to make sure that we were able to catch our ferries!

    This was the seaside on Harkers Island waiting for the ferry to take us to Cape Lookout Island. The beach wasn't very clean, but it still was a nice peaceful view. The wind threatened to blow us away, but it kept down the smell and the bugs (which is infinitely more important than being blown away).

    This is the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. With all the pictures that we got, showing the enormous size and proportion of these beacons, we felt that we needed at least one that played with perspective. Naturally this picture was born :) Mom really likes it!

    This is one of the types of ferries that we rode on. This one was a 2 1/2 hour ride, just to get back on to the mainland from the outer banks. It definitely put into perspective how far we had come. It was fun though to take a break from driving, but still be going some where! This was the ferry that we were afraid that we wouldn't make--it only leaves three times a day! It would have been a REALLY long drive back around if we had missed it!    This lighthouse, the Orcacoke lighthouse was the last one that we saw on Friday. It was a bit of a let-down after all the others. The others stand anywhere from 156'-210' tall, and this one is a scant 75' (which still towers above everything else on that island...) This lighthouse also doesn't have the paraphernalia that the others do (the tourist shops, the fancy info-boards, the Visitor Centers.... just a board walk out through some one's back yard, and you actually look into their yard. The lighthouse is fenced in on private property, unavailable to the public. This unavailability is fine with me, but the short, squatty nature didn't lend itself to awed or inspiring looks. 
    This was the last lighthouse that we saw, and it became one of our favorites. This is Cape Lookout lighthouse. The unique diamond design was so beautiful up close, and stunning from all angles we saw it. We rode in a small boat to get out to this small island, and stayed there for two hours until the boat returned to pick us up. 
    The wind was cold and strong, but I found a nice warm place to rest after walking around. It was a great trip, and there was too much to take in during just one trip--Mom is already planning a follow up trip with Dad in the fall. There will probably be many more tourists by then, but they should still have a lot of fun. 

    It was hard for me to leave Eric (he had to work all three days) and I am reminded how much I love having him around. I love sharing my thoughts with him, talking with him and just laughing with him. Good thing I have him forever!!