Spent our first night on the road at Kentucky Horse Park near Lexington, Kentucky. Such a pretty place and the trees were so colorful.
We turned towards the coast and spent our second night in Natural Bridge, Virginia. Tuesday morning the mountain tops were covered in fog.
We arrived at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and spent the next 3 nights on the Outer Banks camped right across the road from the beach. We were at MP (milepost) 4 and that reminded us of the mile markers used to mark locations in the Keys—Sunshine Key is at MM39.
We headed north on Wednesday towards Currituck. This county was established in 1668 and started as a collection of fishing villages. We stopped at Currituck Heritage Park and visited the Currituck Beach Lighthouse. This unpainted red brick lighthouse was first lit in 1875 and is one of the only in America that still houses its original first-order Fresnel lens. It contains over 1,000,000 brick and stands 162 feet tall. It was the last major brick lighthouse built on the Outer Banks and is still serves as an aid to navigation today. The restored Keeper’s house serves as a museum.
Only 214 steps to the top!
North of the lighthouse lies the restored historic Corolla village. It provides insight into what life was like in this fishing village over a century ago. Beyond here, where the paved road ends, you will find the Corolla wild horses—descendants of Spanish mustangs who have roamed these beaches for over 400 years. This area can be accessed only by foot or with a four-wheeled drive vehicle. Since we did not want to deflate our truck tires to travel the beach, we missed seeing them. Maybe next time.
We spent a fascinating afternoon at the Wright Brothers National Memorial. Wilbur and Orville learned to fly on a stretch of beach near Kill Devil Hills as it provided isolation, high dunes, strong winds and soft landings. The 60-foot Wright Brothers Monument sits atop the sand dune where the Wright Brothers conducted more than 1,000 glider flights. They realized that the problem was not getting into the air, it was controlling the aircraft once it was airborne.
The abilities they developed from all these glider flights helped make them the first pilots. The flying skills they learned on the dune were a crucial component of their invention. Before they ever attempted powered flight, the Wright brothers became masters of the air.
Looking down from the dune, you can see the granite boulders that mark the spot where they completed their first four flights on December 17, 1903. The first flight lasted only 12 seconds and covered 120 feet while the final flight of the day took 59 seconds to travel 852 feet.
Amazing to think how far we have come in the 106 years since those first four short flights. Neil Armstrong carried a piece of cloth and a sliver of the propeller from the original Flyer when he went to the moon 40 years ago. There is a life-size bronze and stainless steel sculpture that replicates the first flight scene and was created based on the famous photograph taken of the event. Can you tell that we loved this spot and the historical miracle that occurred here? We laughed later as December 17 is Kathleen’s birthday, and had we known it was the same day as man’s first flight, her name could very well have been Wilburina or Orvilla!
Surf was up when we got home as there had been a nor’easter earlier in the week and we were having a full moon. It brought all the surfers to the beach for the huge waves.
On Thursday we drove south exploring the Cape Hatteras National Seashore Recreation Area. This seashore extends more than 70 miles from South Nags Head to Ocracoke Inlet. As we traveled along NC12, we encountered an area where a combination of east swells and lunar high tides had sent ocean water across the highway on three successive high tides, starting Tuesday morning. Crews worked for two days to keep the road open.
Of course, we stopped to see “America’s Lighthouse”, the famous Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. It is the tallest brick beacon in the country standing at 208 feet. In 1999, this structure was moved half a mile inland to save it from the encroaching sea. The move, which took about 175 days of on-site preparation, was completed in 23 days. The Lighthouse was cut from its original base, hydraulically lifted onto steel beams and traveled along railroad tracks to its present location.
We toured the museum here in the Keeper’s House and learned that the waters off this shore were know as Torpedo Junction during World War II as German submarines sank so many Allied tankers and cargo ships here.
North Carolina boasts one of the largest ferry systems in the United States. We took the free Hatteras Inlet Ferry from Hatteras to Ocracoke Island.
Ocracoke Island, a 14-mile island, has a picturesque fishing village and was once the home of Blackbeard the Pirate. The Ocracoke Lighthouse, the oldest operating lighthouse in North Carolina, is here. And it also has the Ocracoke ponies. These horses may have originally come from some of the many ship-wrecks that are part of the area’s history. Once ferry traffic and automobiles came to the island after World War II, the ponies were fenced in a gigantic pasture to protect them. Interesting, isn’t it, that ponies are found at both the top and bottom of the Outer Banks?
We boarded the ferry for our return trip and Hank took some fantastic photos of the fishing boat and setting sun behind us.
We are so glad we spent some time in this area and hope to come back as there is so much we missed seeing. Here are just a few more of our favorite pictures from our first few days back on the road.
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