So we’re back from the Outer Banks. We definitely found enough to like to want to go back and make it our “local” Sanibel/Captiva, which we’ve been to five times!
In no particular order:
The drive wasn’t bad at all. About eight hours, including about an hour of charging for the Tesla. Turns out the Tesla computer has an option to choose “Best Amenities” for your charging stops, and you can even combine it with “Fastest” and that’s what we did on our way home. We had some excellent Mexican food for lunch… somewhere… I don’t recall where. Some place called “El Señor.” Somewhere east of Winston-Salem which was our second charging stop on the way home — and that place had a Whataburger about to open! So we will have to remember that for next time and try it for the first time. The kids rave about it, as they had them out in Texas. Coryne loves their jalapeño burger so that will be the one I try. When we take Tempe next time, we’ll have to stop at least twice, possibly three times, so in terms of how long charging takes, it doesn’t really matter; it’ll all come out in the wash.
We stayed at The Sanderling Resort in Duck, NC. The above is a picture from their website. Our room definitely did not have that view! We just got your basic entry level room which was fine. The king-sized bed was comfortable. The room had all the amenities you would expect of a resort by the ocean: little shampoos and whatnot, robes, slippers, in-room safe, in-room fridge, etc. The only thing our room did not have, which we missed, was comfortable seating! It had a table and two chairs and that was it in terms of “comfortable” seating, which is to say, not at all! Lesson learned: next time ask for a room which has comfy chairs or some kind of chair that isn’t a hard chair with a cushion thrown on it. In terms of decor, you could tell it had been recently redone. It had a really nice paint job on the walls, ceiling, and even the dresser. There was a wooden accent that looked like a series of waves lining the entire perimeter of the ceiling. It was charming. The people there also could not have been nicer. We had one waiter our first night at their Lighthouse Restaurant who didn’t write down our very simple order and still managed to get it wrong so we never went back. (Mike! Thwam! LOL). But other than that, the resort staff and the entire island could not have been more solicitous and friendly and competent. A very nice experience that way, for sure.
The first day it was raining, so we just had dinner and went to bed, basically. The next day was our “tourist” day, which also included rain, but not the gale force winds of the day before, thank goodness!
We went to Roanoke Island (and the charming little town of Manteo). We took a tour of the replica ship, The Elizabeth II, they had there. It was the size of your garden variety one-bedroom sailboat you see docked in harbors all up and down the east coast and this thing brought sixty men! Sixty! The two officers had bunks in the front of the ship but the rest of them slept on the hard floor with nothing but a blanket. For months.
No thank you.
Then we went to the National Park Service’s Wright Brothers Memorial. That was a wonderful time, made most interesting by the park ranger who gave about a half hour talk on the history of the first flight. They made at least four attempts there, and out in the field, they marked each of them with stone markers, each one further than the next, with the fourth being waaaaaaaay far away from the first three. As the ranger said, they’d solved the problem of making a flying machine, but actually knowing how to fly the thing was a separate matter, so it took a few tries. The photo below shows the first marker. In the background is the building where the talk was held, and in there is the exact, full-scale replica of the plane, which you can see in my photo above. Its wings were forty feet wide. The story the ranger told was great; the Wright Brothers’ mother and sister were both highly educated women (rare for the time) and were instrumental in their success.
The next day the rain cleared, thank goodness, because we had a tour of the wild horses on Corolla scheduled. The tour vehicle is basically a pick-up truck with benches mounted in the back and our tour guide, a lady about Mike’s age, named Edna, drove. She lived out on the 4×4 beach there so was very accustomed to driving out there and knew all about the horses.
Those “chunks” on the beach are what’s left of a forest. There used to be forest land where there is now beach. The horses were actually up off to the left. Edna would drive off the beach and into the dunes where there was dune grass, and where there is dune grass, there are horses!
The tour lasted about two hours. Highly recommended.
The next day… we went home. It was a great trip.