Notes on a North Carolina vacation

[saxikath]

I'm baaack.

Random thoughts and observations from a week on the North Carolina coast:

• My mom's cousin, his wife, and their teenage son came down from Virginia to join us for our first couple of days. I last saw his wife and son ten years ago when they lived in Washington. (The cousin was at sea -- he's in the Navy.) I last saw the cousin, we figured out, nearly 25 years ago when he visited us one Christmas. I would never have recognized him. Their son -- my second cousin -- is a very pleasant young man.
  
• Curse my northern European ancestors for their pale, easily burned skin! My shoulders are still pretty pink.
  
• That said, it turns out that it is in fact possible for me to get a suntan. On me, it may be more of a cream than a tan, but it's still more color than I've had in a long time.
  
• Ocean. Mmm, ocean.
  
• The view from the top of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse is well worth the 268 stairs up.
  
• There are 7 lighthouses along the North Carolina coastline. We saw six of them: Bodie Island (close up), Cape Hatteras (climbed), Ocracoke (close up), Cape Lookout (from a boat just offshore, pretty close up), Oak Island and Bald Head (both from a far distance). The only one we didn't see was the northernmost one, Currituck Beach.
  
• People who are in other circumstances perfectly rational adults (insofar as I or anyone related to me can be called such) revert to happy 10-year-olds at the seashore.
  
• Dream Park is a good read. (Thanks, bookishfellow!)
  
• Lodging recommendation: the Carteret County Home B&B in Beaufort, NC. Lovely room, pleasant innkeepers, and fresh muffins delivered to your door every morning.
  
• Restaurant recommendations: Bushwacker's in Nag's Head; The Pilot House in Buxton; (apparently unconnected) The Pilot House in Wilmington; that seaside place we had lunch on Bogue Banks whose name I can't remember
  
• Favorite beach: The one off Old Nag's Head Road. But there wasn't a bad one in the bunch.
  
• Highlight of the trip: Hard to say, but probably the catamaran trip from Beaufort to Cape Lookout. Nice people, lovely boat trip, and some superb whelk or conch shells found underwater. Scrambling up a sand dune on Ocracoke to watch the sun set over the sound was pretty good too.
  
• The people we met and dealt with were, almost without exception, among the most friendly I've ever encountered.
  
• My mother and I travel together well. My having lost some weight defused the one real issue that tends to arise between us. We had some good conversations, and laughed a lot. And she never seemed to get sick of my tendency to spout random snippets of information I learned while doing the North Carolina social studies textbook.
  
• I ate so much seafood. Almost all of it excellent (and what wasn't excellent was certainly okay).
  
• Jockey's Ridge really does have enormous sand dunes. Fun to climb -- though I imagine they would have been less so on a hotter and less cloudy day than the one we were there.
  
• Coquina clams (tiny little ones) burrow into the sand as the waves go out, then re-emerge. Fun to watch.
  
• It is possible, though difficult and extremely inelegant, for two adult women to change from regular clothes into swimsuits in a Dodge Neon without flashing the neighbors.
  

More later, I'm sure.

Comments

[drdemure.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the South, my dear. You belong here. I rather think we probably passed each other, as I was in Duck for the longest week of my life. Grey and I toured Kitty Hawk. He landed there as a pilot. Y'all come back now, ya hear?

[saxikath]

We didn't get as far north as Duck -- farthest north we got was Jockey's Ridge.

And if it weren't for the weather (humid heat and I do not get along well), I might be tempted to agree with you about belonging there. :)

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

Welcome back!! Sounds like you had a marvelous vacation. You did take pictures, right? :)