3 posts tagged “outer banks”

I guess I didn't really post much about the vacation, so here goes.

We left at about 9am Tuesday morning for the 7 hour drive to the Outer Banks.  We were initially confused about the routing because every map website out there told us to go north, then east, then south into NC.  It's apparently the fastest way down there.  Whatever.  In a small airplane I could get there in 2 hours or less.  Damn interstate highways that don't go where I want them to go...

So 15 minutes into our drive, as if on cue, Daphne puked.  Every one of her car rides has had the same incident.  Not a big deal - we stopped, cleaned her up, and resumed the drive.  Since both of the cats ride in the same carrier, occasionally Daphne pukes on Nibba, and then it's just no fun.  But this time she went in her own little corner, so it was an easy cleanup.

As we were approaching Richmond, I saw signs for WaWa.  I absolutely had to stop to get a turkey classic, and so we did.  Beautiful.

Anyway, the rest of the drive was uneventful, and we arrived at our little cottage around 4:30pm.  We proceeded to relax for the rest of the night, although we did go out to buy a small charcoal grill.  We ate turkey burgers and turkey dogs, and I remembered why I love grilling so much (our apartment management is very anti-grill).

On Wednesday we slept in.  We were pretty tired after the long drive, so about the only thing we did was lay out and get burned.  I never used to burn as a kid, but for some reason I do now.  It wasn't bad - in fact, I probably won't even peel.  If you've seen the pictures of Jeannie, you can see that she's pretty pale, so she burns in no time flat.  But she knows it, and does it anyway.  We decided to drive into town to eat dinner, and we ended up at Dirty Dick's Crabhouse.  Their slogan is "I got my crabs at Dirty Dick's".  They were out of Blue Crabs, so I had some soft-shell crabs and shrimp.  Not bad.  We took some pictures there too.

Thursday was our day to play tourists.  There are three lighthouses that are on the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, and we hit all three.  First we went to the Bodie (pronounced like "body") Lighthouse.  Then we turned south and drove to the Hatteras Lighthouse.  This one was actually open to the public, so we walked up the 257 steps to the top, where the view was absolutely magnificent.  The pictures don't do it justice.  Finally, we drove down to the Ocracoke Lighthouse.  This lighthouse is on Ocracoke Island, which is only accessible by ferry.  We had packed our lunch, so we decided to eat during the 40 minute ferry ride to the island.  Once on the island, it was just a short drive to the lighthouse.  The actual town of Ocracoke is very cool, and if we return to the Outer Banks, we'll definitely stay there next time.  It's such a small, quaint little town with lots of little shops and restaurants.  The town is centralized on one side of the island, and you can walk to any other point in town within about 15 minutes.  We really, really liked Ocracoke.  We returned back to the cottage and grilled out again, but this time, steaks!  Before we left that morning I had put the steaks in some marinade, and I grilled them up along with some corn on the cob.  Talk about an awesome dinner.

*Quick side note: The day after my checkride I went to the hotel restaurant and paid $25 for a steak dinner.  It wasn't even close to the steaks that I grilled on Thursday.  What a waste.

On Friday we chose to sleep in again.  We were pretty whooped (that's a word - The New English Dictionary of Terry).  We ended up going out to buy a kite (pictures posted) and we came back to the cottage to fly it.  On the way back, we stopped to watch the sun set over the Pamlico Sound, which was absolutely awesome.  Anyway, flying the kite was a thrill since the last time either of us had done that we were both still in grade school.  I guess I forgot to mention that the beach was less than 50 yards from our cottage.  We just had to walk up and over a dune to get there.

So today we drove back.  I would be remiss as an aviator to say that I went to the Outer Banks and didn't visit the Wright Brothers Memorial.  So we decided to stop there on our way out.  I didn't get to spend as much time there as I would have liked, but I did get to see everything, and we got some great pictures.  I'll get those added to the gallery soon.  Anyway, Daphne puked again, we stopped at Wawa, and made it home in 7 hours.  I'm glad to be home.

Jeannie and I have had some great vacations.  Our first was right after I came back from Iraq when we spent a week in Panama City.  Our "honeymoon" was in San Antonio, and we had a blast there as well.  Last year we vacationed in Rocky Point, Mexico, and that was unbelievable.  This year was the Outer Banks.  It was originally going to be the Virgin Islands, but due to me moving to a new airline and not having travel benefits, that just wasn't going to happen.  I'm glad it didn't.  I really do still want to go to the VI, but this vacation was awesome.  I don't regret the decision one bit.

But for now, I'm just glad to be home.

Jeannie and I are on vacation right now.  We've come to the Outer Banks, North Carolina for a few days.  It's beautiful here right now, and we're enjoying every minute of it.  I'll put some pictures up when we get back.

Well, I finished my checkride last night.  It really wasn't bad at all.  I had a pretty cool examiner who taught a lot during the checkride, which made things interesting.

My sim partner, well, he's in for some more training.  Maybe.  He has to go see someone from management at the training center on Tuesday, and in the meantime he has to go home.  I think they'll let him finish.  He's not that far off, and they've invested so much money in him up to this point that it would be stupid to send him home for good.

I also found out that the two other guys from my class who are here will have to retrain their last lesson.  It sucks, because they both think they're ready for the checkride, but the instructor didn't.  Obviously I'm all for my buddies, but if the instructor knows who the examiner is, and he recommends more training, it's probably a good idea.

So I go home in about 12 hours.  It is now officially my wedding anniversary.  Two whole years.  I was telling my wife earlier tonight that in some ways it feels like we got married last month, and in others it feels like we've been married for twenty years.  It's all good, I promise.  ;o)

On Tuesday we'll be going on vacation to the Outer Banks.  I'm looking forward to it for a few reasons:
1) Time with the wife
2) A break from everyday crap
3) The beach

We're staying in a house that is just on the other side of the dunes from the beach, and we'll be there from Tuesday thru Saturday.  We're also taking the kitties so we won't have to have anyone check on them.  The whole family's going!

I'm just so happy to be done and going home.  It's been a long two months.