We awoke this morning to the lovely sound of our phone alarms. After taking another half an hour to wake up fully, we quickly packed up our car, and walked into Wal-Mart to buy breakfast. In the bakery section, I noticed that old fashion blueberry pies were on sale for $.69, so I got one for breakfast. Zack, as could be easily be guessed, bought doughnuts for himself. Once we had finished eating, we stopped at a gas station to top off and brush our teeth. Now fully ready for the day, we set off.
The previous day, Zack and I had looked up which beaches in North Carolina were best for surfing. As well, we looked for surfboard rental prices, and found a surf shop in the town of Buxton, NC, that rented various sizes of surfboards for $10 a day. From Kitty Hawk, we made our way south towards Buxton. On the way there, we saw (to the west, in the body of water between the Outer Banks of NC and the rest of NC) quite a few wind surfers; at one point we could probably see about 50 at once.
When we arrived in Buxton, Zack and I had a realization. If we were to rent surfboards in town and drive back to the beach how in the world would we fit a 6’-8’ surfboard in our already crammed car? So instead of walking into the surf shop, we decided to turn around and scout out the beaches nearby. Our first few stops were unsuccessful, we found lots of sand and seashells, but no surfers (our logic was that the best places for surfing was, well, where we found surfers). Around noon, we found a portion of beach facing the ocean with quite a few cars in the parking lot, so we got out to investigate.
When we walked up, we saw a few people with surfboards—a glimmer of hope. Along with the surfers, we saw some large waves crashing not far off shore. As we got closer, we realized these weren't just large waves, they were massive. Apart from two brave surfers far from shore, nearly everyone at the beach was simply staring out at the ocean, watching the magnificence of the waves. Even a few surfers, fully geared, were just standing on the shore looking out. Because neither of us had ever gone surfing before, we decided to stay out of the water.
Just down the road from the beach, there was a lighthouse. We decided to go over and look at it, but after seeing the price to go up, we just stayed at ground level.
After the leaving the lighthouse, we starting driving back towards Kitty Hawk. Along the way, we saw a sign for the island of Roanoke. Because it wasn’t far from where we were, we decided to go check it out. Upon arriving in Roanoke, we saw a sign pointing towards the lost colony. Following the signs, we ended up at a visitor center for a local state park. Because most of the things in the visitor center were geared towards children, we didn’t stay long. Nearby, there was another sign stating that the lost colony was ahead, so we began walking up the trail.
After looking for a while for the lost colony, we discovered that its name was fitting. Other then this memorial, we couldn’t find, well, anything.
A bit more exploring revealed that the signs for the lost colony were for a very large fictional reenactment of the story of the settlers of Roanoke.
Because we weren’t planning on staying until evening to watch the play, we walked back to our car, and made our way to Kitty Hawk. When we got there, we decided to go to the location Kitty Hawk is most famous for—the place where Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first successful airplane flight. The visitor center here was very in depth, with many different displays.
Once we had our fill of the visitor center, we walked up to the top of a nearby hill with a monument to Orville and Wilbur.
Afterwards, we walked down to the track where the Wrights made their first four flights, with a small monument marking the landing place of their flights.
After looking at these, we noticed that we only had another half an hour before the park closed. From the top of the hill, we had seen some bronze statues not far off, so we drove over to check them out.
By now, it was getting near to evening, so we decided to set off to our next destination—the hometown of my favorite band, Mae. We didn’t really know what to look at in the town, so we just began turning whichever way seemed interesting. Not long after, we realized that we were being followed by someone, so we pulled over. She had stopped us to tell us there was a line hanging below the car with liquid coming out (she thought it was “either a brake line or a fuel line”). While we were very thankful for her concern, it turns out it was simply the drainage hose for our ice chest in the trunk.
While we were stopped, we decided to look at what things we could do in Norfolk after 6:30. Shortly, Zack told me to start driving, and navigated me to downtown Norfolk, saying that we needed to hurry because “it” was starting soon. I followed directions, soon finding out that we were heading to a theater. When we got there, we could only find one parking spot. I would need to parallel park Zack’s car.
Already having enough issues driving stick this trip, I pulled up next to the car in front of the empty spot, letting Zack know that he was going to have to come around and park it for me. Looking over, I saw that the car next to us was not empty, and the man inside didn’t seem to like the idea of me parking next to him. I’ve heard of people being able to do extraordinary things when they have adrenaline pumping through them. This was one of them. I panicked and did what I had never done before—parallel parked a stick.
After that terrifying experience, we hurried across the street, bought our ticket for the movie (we didn’t even know what movie it was until we got in). and took our seat at a table. Once we were settled, a waitress came and let us know how this dinner theater worked, giving us menus.
Looking at the menu, Zack and I each picked out a desert (cinnamon roll and cheesecake, respectively), picked up the phone, and made our orders. Very shortly afterwards, the previews ended, we received our food, and our movie (which turned out to be The Conspirator) began.
Once we had enjoyed our desserts and finished our movie, we headed over to the nearest Wal-Mart, and found our parking spot for the night. Before going to sleep tonight, we decided to watch another movie, The King’s Speech. Finally, once our second movie in our double-feature evening was finished, we went to sleep.
Interesting Observations:
-For most of the day, we saw signs everywhere with the abbreviation OBX (including a couple vehicles with “To OBX or Bust” painted on the window). Though the OB in OBX didn’t stand for anything related to the OB in OB/GYN (one of the earlier not-so-serious suggestions of Zack), we did find out that it simply stood for “Outer Banks.”
-On Kitty Hawk, we didn’t have a hard time finding the cheapest gas. For about a 20 mile stretch, every single gas station was selling gas for $3.83 (save BP, whose gas was $3.85; I guess they have to pay for their oil spill somehow).
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