Life is a Beach

The weather for two of our full days in the OBX area were cloudy and a bit windy, so we didn't spend the full days at the beach.  Always made it down there, though.  So we made sure we did some other fun things in the area.  We made it back to the Wright Brothers Memorial, where K and Bill finished up their Jr. Ranger activity booklets.  Bill actually did this one because it's a Jr. Flight Ranger, which he was psyched about.  This boulder marks the exact spot  the first airplane lefted off for the very first time.  The ranger who gave the talk was very passionate about it, telling all of us there that this was the tombstone for the impossible.  The Wright Brothers accomplished the impossible, so we know that the impossible is just something that hasn't been done yet.        

We also checked out the Lost Colony at Ft. Raleigh.  We explored more of the Roanoke Colony mystery, and learned about the role of the area in the Civil War.  We've read quite a bit about the Roanoke Colony, so it was good to visit the location.                                      

Our final day at the beach.  We put on our raincoats and hit the surf anyway!  With the storms present, there were warnings galore about winds and rip currents.  We wanted to find seashells, though, so we toughed it out.  It was really neat to see the stronger waves.  Finding seashells we wanted to take home wasn't overly successful, though the kids managed to find quite a few.                

The kids were dying to get up in a lighthouse.  We only visited two of the lighthouses on the barrier islands, and we chose to go up the Bodie Lighthouse, even I went up!  Going up was good, coming down was bad.  The stairs have holes in them, and you can see the whole windy path down.  That's 230-ish stairs.  Of doom.  Death.  Mayhem.  Destruction.  But I made it just fine, thank you.  And days later, I can still feel the journey in my calves.  This trip has not been conducive to an exercise regime.  I know people do it and manage to stay fit while travelling, but I am not one of those people.  Someday, but not today.  And now we journey onward.