Sunday blends into Monday...

Whew! It’s really hard to keep track of days here… I’m going to try and combine two of them here so I can catch up and maybe that will make me less confused. But probably not – we’re on island time here. Tonight (Monday, literally tonight), we’re just hanging out – and BP said, “AGAIN??... just kidding”. But this is our life here, bike around, go to the beach, shop, hang out, rub aloe all over the red parts of our bodies – repeat.

Yesterday we had designated as beach day – must do – we’re on an island and we have to get our feet and others body parts wet asap. Well, almost asap; we wanted to get bikes first so that we had transportation and we had that out of the way. We rented them for the full week – it took BP and BM some convincing to do the bikes. BP hasn’t really been a bike rider ever, she learned when she was 10 – and BM just hasn’t been on one in a long time (double digit years), but this is how we’re getting to places if we go shopping or out to eat, anything locally will be on two wheels, so they do it too. I was a little more worried about the bikes with BP, but its BM we should have been worried about. We rent them from the same place as the place we get our daily slushies, and then we’re going to ride them just across the street to go to a surf shop to get goggles for Dana. O. M. G. BM starts off and her bike is shaking SO much, it’s like she’s having tremors while she’s riding the bike – it’s going in a zig zag pattern and I was riding right beside her, and quickly steered VERY clear of her path. I’m laughing hysterically, which is making BM laugh, which is making her shake more… it was a little scary thinking that this was now our primary mode of transportation and BM was struggling to ride 20 feet. We park and we’re still laughing about it – we’re heading up the steps to the beach shop, and we see that there is a couple up on the porch looking through clothes on the rack and the guy starts talking to us, “Guess it’s been a while since you been on a bike” – he clearly enjoyed watching BM cross the street. As we continue shopping in the store, the couple is still in the store and I overhear her say to him, “But she has a great laugh, it makes me smile, I’m smiling right now”… BM is just mortified, “Oh thanks…hahahaha”… as soon as she saw a someone wheeling around on a trike, she was determined that that’s what she needed. It was just so funny that other people in the village are openly laughing at us. In fact they’re all very friendly, like they include us in their little town, they’re all very chatty.

Ok – bikes done, we head to the BEACH! We packed sandwiches, sun screen, and our little rafts that we through would be perfect for just lounging in the ocean. We had applied sun screen at the house, but the lotion seemed too tedious, so BM and Patti had the new spray stuff – it was fine the first time, but during the re-application process, the wind caught all the spray. The result? We are RED in very weird splotchy places, mainly me and BM because BP was wisely covered, and Patti and Dana already have a nice base tan. We are in a little pain today – the red is in all the bendy places on our bodies, so we reapply lots of aloe and after sun lotion. We have vowed, lotion yet, spray no – at least not on the beach and definitely not in wind. As BM says, “The wind stole my spray!”.

The waves are massive! People are surfing on these waves! You go out and they SLAM you – and with the salt water going in your eyes, it’s a little rough at first. BM, Patti and Dana want to try and body surf. When a wave comes you jump and try to let it carry you in. I thought that our little rafts would be perfect, we could just ride them in – but I end up just getting crushed by waves, and BM keeps losing her skirt. We wanted to be in/near the water without feeling like we were on the wash cycle, so we just sat near the water’s edge and let the waves lap over us. The tide is slowly coming in but we have our stuff set up WAY up the beach, like 30 feet… no worries. We take a break for lunch and the seagulls decide to join us. They clearly know that as soon as people bring food out that that means suppa time. It starts with one, and then three, then five… they keep squawking, calling their friends in, and we look up and they have us surrounded. It’s totally creepy, they are evenly spaced and are in formation in a circle around us. Just quietly waiting to make their move. Some of them really love BM, they’re giving her the eye and she starts yelling at them – they thinks she’s saying, “come fly up to me and grab my food!” – and they do – well they don’t grab the food. But they are in our space and FLYING (!) right above BM’s head. Shrieking happens, squawking happens… BM is white knuckling her sandwich until she gets it eaten. Traumatized. Don’t mention the birds to her. Don’t tell her I told you.

BP has sand issues – well honestly, we all have sand issues, it turns out that sitting in liquefied sand makes it go up and around and in places… and when you stand up, it looks like you’re having a very unfortunate bout of diarrhea. When we got home BP had one of the best quotes of the weekend so far – she was coming down the stairs and said “I can’t even wipe myself there’s so much sand!”… Now, before you jump to conclusions – well actually, I’d enjoy it if you just took a moment to jump to a few conclusions, I mean what else could she be talking about really? Well, it turns out that she had just finished aloeing BM, and she wanted to wipe her hands on her clothes, but she was still wearing her beach stuff that had sand all over it, and so she couldn’t wipe her hands on her clothes or there would be a lot of sand on them. What else could it be?

BM has this lotion that she uses for after sun, she was worried about repacking it back in Kitty Hawk, she had already gotten some “goo” on her under clothes in the suitcase because she didn’t enclose the plastic bag when she packed her bag the first time and now it had been opened again… but Dana helped out in a move that McGyver would be proud of. "Bring me a trash bag!". Like "scalpel, clamp, trash bag!"... later when BM packed it up again she used a shower cap – affectionately referred to as a lotion condom. And good thing – when she took it out, the lotion had leaked out again. Safety first pays off.
After the beach we just came home and showered and rode the bikes down to a restaurant – Patti and I finally found our raw oysters but we couldn’t get BM to try one. Our waitress cracked us up, she was either not having a good day, or just thought that we were complete idiots. Patti asked how long the half sub was, and she gets that voice you get when you’re talking to a child, “Weell, the *full* sub is 8 inches… so a *half* sub would be *four* inches.”… Came back and we were in bed by 10, most of us were in bed before then, but BP stayed up and watched some tube. All of us had plans to go looking for shells in the morning at 5am. BM researched “shelling” – you’re supposed to go at high tide because that’s when the tide brings in all the big shells. We have a tide schedule and high tide is at 5:46am. Yikes. All but BP are in!

WELCOME TO MONDAY!!!

It’s now Monday – we’re up at 5am, and heading to the north beach to go shelling. Sunrise is also at 5:40ish, but it’s awfully bright outside if the sun hasn’t come up yet. We drive about 12 miles up the island because they tell us to go to the north beach; we park and walk out and down to the beach… no shells. We walk up and down the beach – no shells anywhere. VERY disappointing. But we take our time getting back to the house, we stop off and read info about the island horses (they’re wild horses and they feed them at specific times, we’re going on Thursday)… and we drive all over the village – there’s probably a 2 mile radius, so it’s not a big area to search, but we want to scope for shops we want to visit, and I wanted to see if there were any beaches on the Sound side of the island. It doesn’t look like it – it’s more boat access and looks more like a lake on the calm side of the island, so for beaches we just get the wash cycle.

Once get back to the house we use the outside shower to rinse the sand off our feet – the water is alittle low, so BM decides to turn it up… while she’s standing right in front of it. BAM in the face with water! I didn’t see it, but all I hear is Patti laughing hard enough to shake the house – the retelling is almost as good, Patti described her face – imagine a little kid getting a face full of water unexpectedly. OHHH! Poor Britt. It’s still early, about 7ish – and we all head back to bed. I was the last one up at 10am, slept with no alarm, so I’m not sure what happened before then. You’ll have to check their blogs to find out.

BM VERY disappointed... no shells

Out shopping, we take a little break - You can get a glimpse of BP's red face...

We get ready, it’s shopping day. We go to a couple of places, and BM still isn’t very confident on the bike, but she was doing fine. She felt she needed to find a tricycle - but the place only has one, and they reserve it for the elderly or disabled (they kind of judge her a bit for wanting a trike) and they didn't want to give it to her... So today she looked at other places. The place we got the bike would refund her money if she found one at another place, and we rode around and found a place. We stayed there and BM rode back to the other place (about a block or 2 away) to return the bike, we waited at the new place and she was going to walk back. I went to check on her (and take the papers just in case). When I got there, the lady was saying they would let her have the trike - I guess they weren't in love with refunding her money. I went back to report, and tell BP that she could have that trike if she wanted it. BM rolls up, and she looks shakier on the trike than the bike. And its not long before Dana notices that she has bike tracks on the back of her legs - like she's been run over! She reluctantly tells us that she crashed the trike (remember that its 1-2 blocks from the place)... She's had it for 2 minutes and she crashes it??? She's not living that one down for a while - each time we talk about it a few more details come out. She claims to have just run into a bush - not her fault of course (cough, cough), the bike tilts and she can't steer it. She was FINE on the bike, but she nearly injures herself on the trike…

Poor BM and her crash marks - she wasn't going to tell us about the "incident" until we asked - she didn't realize she had tire marks on her calves.

The shops are all cute – great local crafts – we make notes about things that we want to go back for. We’re pretty beat. It’s about 4 and we decide on a late lunch and then head back to the house to chill. We lunch at Dajio (the owners’ names start with D and J – the name means “D and J in Ocracoke”) – amazing food, like “foodie” food. I have this salad that is lemon grass vinaigrette with sundried tomatoes, blue cheese and shrimp WOW.. Patti and BP have a chicken breast with a generous slab of gouda cheese on it, and BM had the broiled shrimp with lovely fresh fruit… We even had desert. I had a key lime pie with strawberries, Dana had an amazing “chocolate patte” (WHAT IS THAT??) – it tastes like a cross between fudge and ice cream – YUM!! BM has a coconut crème brulee, and Patti has a blueberry cobbler. SO good. And we had already looked the place up and we knew we wanted to eat breakfast there because they have crème brulee stuff French toast – and dinner they have steak Oscar (covered in crab meat, asparagus and hollandaise sauce)… so we will be regulars at Dajio.

The flies are bothering BM – they had bothered her at the beach too – and they are mean green headed biting flies… "I hate the flies.. They're not on me - just around".

Shrimp and grits.... YUM - Patti and BP didn't care for them - but I could eat a whole thing on my own (we all split it to taste it) - really creamy with prosciutto.

Check out that GOUDA!!

Chocolate patte!!! WHAT??

Ooooh - and yummy key lime! It was really good, and I'm leery of key lime stuff since we were were actually in the keys and had the real stuff. We learned that real key lime pie is white, not green, not yellow... but this had great flavor!

Back at the house chilling again now – BP made our favorite banana crème pie – Patti made “Summer beer” (yum!! It’s like beer and vodka with sprite and lemonade). We watched a few eps of Drop Dead Diva, and played card games. We are already making plans for a dolphin cruise on Wednesday - it's a sunset cruise, and we'll be the only people on the boat. And BP and BM are set on us going for breakfast at Dajio tomorrow morning. They have eggs oscar... thinks eggs benedict topped with crab and asparagus... Oh the life…

BP's famous banana creme pie. It's a little slice of heaven. Truly.