Planes, Ferrys and Automobiles... the looong trip home

What a day… pretty much 16 hours of travel and much more draining that we thought it would be. We need a vacation from our trip home. J

We start off early and get all our stuff together, put the house back together, make sandwiches and pack up the rest of the fruit from the frig into our cheap little Wal-Mart cold pack bag and we pack up the car. There is a journal in the house that the owners have asked renters to write in and say what we did, what we recommend to others – and of course we rave about Dajio, Café Atlantic and the slushies. Just as we were sitting around because we were ready just a little early (we’re that good), Dana notices something shiny in Patti’s hair… and it’s moving. Patti freaks – just a little – and not inappropriately.. It’s a little termite like bug that we had spotted in the house the first day – maybe it’s a 7 day bug cycle. That is out cue to leave.

Packing up the car..

BM needs one last slushie before we leave so we go by the shop and she gets her freshly squeezed orange juice slushie. We wait in the car and we see a new group of people renting out bikes. That’s the cycle of the island here, all the houses rent for 7 days, from either Saturday to Saturday or Sunday to Sunday, so the locals definitely get into a rhythm – I wonder if that was engineered like that or just happened organically. It seems like something that may be written into bi-laws, if you have a rental house you must rent in 7 day increments, makes life less of a hassle I guess. Expect the new dingbatters on Sat or Sunday. They have a new local radio station here and they mention, “So a lot of you all are probably leaving on Saturday”… we were first introduced to it when our captain played it on the boat, and then we saw them advertising it by riding around in the back of a pickup truck in drag and since then we’ve been listening to it in the car. It’s got a great variety of songs you never hear – reminds us of “The Wood” put out by Lindenwood University – wish we could get it at home..

The Slushie stand...

We make it safely to the ferry check in by 9:20 and there are lots of puppies and kids stretching their legs. There are also a pair of ducks waddling around just in case anyone wants to feed them; one little girl in a sun dress, maybe about 3, just loves chasing them.

At about 10:15 we start loading the ferry and point out to BM that we're getting on the ferry so that she knows that we're on a boat this time, and we’re leaving the dock by 10:30. We head up to the sun deck and BP spots a dolphin! No lie! The ferry ride is about 2 hours long and some of us nap in the air-conditioned lounge, Patti naps in the car - and then I went back out to the car and Patti and I ate the sandwiches we packed and some of the watermelon. It was a yummy treat, and the wal-mart cooler bag has really paid off. We've used it a lot this week. Best $2 we ever spent.

Waiting to board the ferry...

Hanging out on the sun deck

This guy fed the gulls out of his hand..

We’re driving back a different way than we came, instead of driving north up the outer banks and crossing at the bridge at Roanoke Island, we’re taking a two hour ferry straight over from Ocracoke and then driving 3-4 hours northwest to Raleigh. We have swamp on both sides so we're on the lookout for swamp people again. Our boat captain was explaining how they set nets to catch fish and BM chimed in, that's how the swamp people catch alligators. The captain watches it too, "Oh you watch that?"..

We're listening to the CD that the girls bought, and it sounds like he's saying "funky donkey spanker".. We'll have to look up the lyrics….. ok… I’m back. We looked up the lyrics. And he is in fact saying “funky donkey spanker”.. Hmmm. But we like him, he’s a little Jack Johnsonish.

We've got the AC on and I'm lovin it. Patti's mom always says, "Susen loves AC" (and my dogs do too). BM who is usually with me is turning the vents off, "I'm used to island weather now, the AC is cold." She’s become a native in one week. We started off with small winding roads surrounded by water when we got off the ferry, and we head inland further and further we start to see more signs of civilization. We see some shops that we turn into slap happy laugh riots – even the back seat is concerned about our sanity. There is one tanning place called “Season's Tanning” – that doesn’t even make sense to me… I turn it into like a “Season’s Greeting!”… Merry christmas, season's tanning! – and it’s in New Bern, not Old bern, or sun burn, or wind burn, not even slow burn. We hate a slow burn - give me a fast burn anytime! And by the end of that we could barely breathe we were laughing so hard. Road weary. Slap happy.

We hit a stretch of road and this strong smell of peanut butter hits me… Do you smell peanut butter? Patti smells it… BM smells it… Dana and BP do not. It continues and it’s really strong. Are you sure you guys aren’t eating peanut butter or something – this is distinctly nutty. This goes on for a while, until Dana pipes in – well I was eating these caramelized roasted cashews… but that was 5 min ago. OH! Well, I can see how you didn’t think that us smelling peanuts had anything to do with you eating cashew NUTS… that would be ridiculous. Probably completely unrelated. J

Continuing inland the roads are getting bigger, and we spot the true sign of civilization – a Burger King. We stop and get drinks, some of us get food. BM notes that this is her first meal in a week that doesn’t have anything to do with fish.

Other roadside attractions… Chubby Nubby's... it’s an antique store. What an unfortunate name. And why for an antique store? Why for ANY store? We drive by a Mr. Waffles that is in extreme disrepair.. We think of him and Mrs. Waffles and hope they're doing ok now. We think they might have fared better if they were “Mr. Creme Brulee French toast”.

BM is OUT - we're laughing, being loud, yelling "big fat cow!" And nothing. I tickle her leg and she wakes long enough to give me a death look, but still can't put two words together. She is dazed and confused, but I’m entertained.

On the road again

We finally make it to the airport and return the car. It’s 4:30, and our flight is at 6:30. While we’re checking our bags BM falls in love with sweet older lady who just happens to be sporting an awesome silver mullet. It’s like Carol Brady except that it’s curled under instead of flipped out. I never really appreciated how the flip made that look work until I’ve seen it curled under. We head through security and we have a ninja warrior in our midst – he has been creeping his way up closer in line, and he’s now in the middle of our group. We’re just circled (facing each other) as we chat in line and it makes it really obvious that this man is standing in the middle of our group. When it’s time to split into two lines he makes his move and gets ahead…. But then forgets to take off his belt and has to go back, and then forgets his shoes and has to go back, and each time he rebuts in line in a different place. Just as we’re walking up to the metal detector – it breaks. We all have to go through the full body scan – I was just talking to BP about it and saying that she would probably be selected for it because she’s ALWAYS selected to get the full body rub down, she says it’s because of all the metal bobbie pins in her hair – and now we’re all going through it. Oh yay. They have a sign to show us what it really looks like, and they explain that the person that looks at the images is located in a different place. I guess that’s so they can laugh openly without offending anyone. One guy is ready to go through and the guard sees his boarding pass in his pocket and tells him, “nothing in your pockets”… the guy continues with a flow of questions… “not my boarding pass…(searching through pockets)… what about my wallet?” (guard, “no”)… “no change?”… (nothing in your pockets)… “not my I.D.?” Are you kidding me right now? NOTHING IN YOUR POCKETS! NOTHING!!

We’re excited because we’re at gate C1… yay! No walking all over the dang place! We settle in – some get food, but BP and I hold out because we were going to eat in Atlanta because we have a layover there and just had Burger King not that long ago. We’re at our gate, and it still says St. Louis – but it’s 5:55, and no sign of boarding our 6:30 flight. Patti happens to check the flight board and she sees that our gate has been changed. We’re now at C9 – but there has been no announcement. I was a little crabby – hoping that we’re now not behind on boarding, it’s almost 6. So we talk and maybe we talk about it a little louder to let off our crabbiness (really it’s all about the lack of communication). We get over to the new gate and there is no one boarding, no one even waiting to board – so we think they’re all already on the plane. We go up and ask and we are gestured to the seats.. still no communication. We see people from our previous gate start to trickle over. We think that we started the move because they still haven’t said that our gate has changed. Someone in the group notices that there is a lightening cloud picture next to “Atlanta” and Dana goes up to ask. It’s now about 6:30. Our flight time. And Finally, an announcement – our flight in delayed (really?, shocked) – there are severe storms in Atlanta and all flights in and out are on hold, we’ll get an update on the weather in 20 minutes. That’s fine – our flight out of Atlanta isn’t until 10:10, and our flight in is only an hour long, so as long we leave by 8:00 we should be fine (we’re counting on the fact that Atlanta is a ginormous airport and we’ll need extra time to get to our departing gate).

Since it now looks like our layover in Atlanta is now gone, I decide to go get some food. It’s 6:30, and everything is closing. My options are the packaged sandwiches at the newsstand or a $15 pizza from California Pizza Kitchen – I opt for the pizza. We kill time by playing spades. We have several annoying people around us and we’re trying to block them out. Kids who apparently have no parents are screaming in our ears, Ninja is on our flight, and so is silver mullet… . We have a VERY knowledgeable chatty Kathy next to us. I gauge her at about 26 and she is travelling for “business” and just has the answer to everything under the sun. While we’re playing spade BM is acting as a kind of receiver for all info.. When the kids scream, she also screams… like completely unconsciously… when the chatty Kathy makes a statement of knowledge, BM responds under her breath “Oh I didn’t know that, that’s interesting… “ She has to stop. It takes some doing to get her to snap out of it. Travel weary, and slap happy. It’s been 35 minutes… and no announcement. Dana goes up to check and voila, announcement. He doesn’t know when we’re leaving. Duh. We keep watching our departure time update on the gate info… we’re now at an 8pm departure. Which turned into an actual 9pm departure.

BM and BP trying to look upset about our delayed flight to Atlanta...

We start to board and the ninja has parkoured his way up in the line (Parkour!). I mention in my normal voice, that we all have assigned seats and we’re not going anywhere until everyone is on. Those that the ninja has cut in front of look at us and smile like, “right?”… we’re a little nervous about the really tight connection now, they’re guessing we’ll land at 9:30 (which is another lie because we don’t get out until 9:00 and it’s an hour flight) and we have a connecting flight at 10:10. During the flight Patti asks about the tight connection and she reassures us that we’ll be fine, that every flight in and out was effected, so they’ll all be delayed. She has another flight at 10:10 and it’s been delayed to 12:10. We’re happy to hear that we probably won’t miss the flight, but not thrilled about leaving 2 hours later. Mixed feelings.

We arrive at 10:00 and learn the flight is delayed to 10:35 (perfect!)... And then flight time on the gate changes to 10:50 (no announcement again – is this just a Delta thing? I’ve never had such a lack in communication)... It changes again… 11:06....Then 11:10.... Just tell me 11:30 and surprise me when we leave early. They announce that we're just waiting on a flight crew. The plane is ready and we're ready - we'll see what time we actually get out.

Snacks at the Atlanta airport...

. We got out about 11:15, after our flight attendant tried to ease our stress by telling us jokes (?!). We’ve had delay after delay, we’re sitting at the gate ready to pull back from the gate (we’ve already done the seat belt and exit demo) and she talks to us in a really high pitched squeaky/scratchy voice that reminds me of Rae Dawn Chong’s character “Squeak” in The Color Purple (if you know it then you know what I’m talking about), thanking her “first class passengers especially for continuing to chose Delta… but really everyone from the very front to the very back – thanks for picking Delta and she hopes that we all select Delta again (there are audible groans from coach)… and then she says that she wants to get us to St. Louis and she know that we want to get there because she’s heard that they had great BBQ, but she’s from Texas so she’s not too sure about that, and besides the KC BBQ (she misspeaks and apparently thinks we’re now going to KC)… I mean St. Louis BBQ… blah, blah, blah…. and she’s read this study about the stress of travelers (more groans) because of delays and weather and flight attendants….. it’s getting awkwardly long, a long time ago… so she wants to relieve our stress by telling us jokes. WHAT? Can’t we please just leave? She tells us about 10 jokes of the caliber of “What do you call cheese that is not yours?” (nacho cheese), and “How much does it cost for a pirate to get his ears pierced?” (A buck-an-ear)… a guy about 2 rows in front of me shouts, “SHUT UP!”… our sentiments exactly. She finally steps away from the open mic night, and we take off. It’s 11:15, 90 minute flight and we’re home!

We land in STL (and we got our hour back), so its 11:45. And we've just been told we'll be sitting here for at least another 20min because another plane is still at our gate. Very frustrating. 35 minutes later we get another update… they don’t want to tell us a time because he doesn’t want to lie to us (again)… I’m not the only person thinking that there is probably an open gate somewhere at this airport and that after delay upon delay it might be good customer service to do everything they can to just get us off this friggin plane asap. At 12:30 we finally start to de-plane (De plane! De plane!)… Scott has been communicating with us through facebook while we’ve been sitting there, and he greets his wife (who is now very crabby like the rest of us). We get to baggage claim, and we wait a really long time before get our bags. Too long. But we do finally get them and we head our separate ways – taxi home for me and Patti; Dana’s dad is picking her up; Scott is driving BP and BM home and then BP has her own drive home…. It was a blast time, and I wouldn’t want to be on island time with ferry hair and crabby in the airport with any other people.

Until next year blog!

You missed it!! J

Our last day... Rain, rain, go away...

There was a big storm here last night, everyone but BP heard it; lots of thunder and lightning and heavy rain beating against the house. BM said that she heard the storm and couldn't sleep for another reason - she was excited about going to the beach today because we read that it was better to go shelling after a storm, and we were going to go to the beach this morning anyway, and it’s going to coincide with high tide... She couldn't sleep, like a kid on Christmas Eve. So I hope there are shells.

When BM first came downstairs she was shivering a little - she curls up on the loveseat and pulls the throw over her and whines, "I'm a little chilly and this is a little blanket... ". I told her I thought a little blanket was perfect for a "little" chilly. She was not amused. We asked her if she heard us shouting "Big fat cow" this morning. She says no, but she heard something else weird in the morning – and she tried to explain, “You know what it is, you when you're in that place where you're half awake and half asleep, when I hear a snore it does something funny…” Oh yah, that thing, yah we know exactly. So she was half sleeping, heard herself snore, and turned it into us shouting “Big fat cow!”. We start yelling “big fat cow!” (a lot, and loud, and BP is still sleeping) – when she comes downstairs we ask if she heard us yelling it – she didn’t. BUT she thinks it’s funny because she thinks that we lied to BM yesterday and we actually did yell “big fat cow” yesterday.

No breakfast out today, we eat bagels and cereal and stuff, and we get up and out because we have to return the bikes before 11 (it’s not close to that yet) but we hear on the news that there is another storm coming through in 30minutes, so we want to get down there soon because we have to walk back to the house once we return them. We’ll miss them, it was really a fun way to get around the island. When we ride past the Bull dogs, they’re sitting out in their chairs again! OH, so CUTE!! We love that they just sit there, no owners around to tell them not to walk off – they just know that those are their chairs. BM wants a pic with the dogs, both in their chairs, but as soon as she goes up to them the girl dog gets up and searches for her toy and brings it to BM to throw. The boy couldn’t care less and just relaxes in his chair. We ride on and return the bikes and start to walk back – on the way back we stop by the dogs again, and this time BM sneaks up behind them and we get the picture of the three of them. YAY!

the BULLIES!

Our last picture on our bikes - in the back yard of our house.

We walk back to the house (it’s maybe half a mile) to get ready for the beach… kind of. The sky is getting dark and scary and as soon as we get back it starts storming. Patti hangs out on the screened in front porch while it storms – nothing better than that. We hang out and watch some Drop Dead Diva until the sky clears up and then we head to the beach. It’s SUPER windy today because of the storm, and the tide is still pretty high, so the beach that was really calm the other day has now turned into a BIG fat wave pool. We go out for a bit, but it’s too rough for the rafts – and then when we get back to the beach towels, the wind is blowing the sand so much that it hurts. It feels like derm-abrasion. We will have smooooth skin. We don’t last long there at all – maybe an hour. Our last day on the beach is cut short.

On the drive back we hit the last minute stores that we wanted to re-visit, and Patti drives us by the taco stand again. We get the shrimp tacos and cheesy pork tacos, and a huarache (?) – it’s more like a weird cracker pizza with black bean paste and green salsa, not our favorite. Just a little bland – but we’re happy to have the shrimp tacos again. Patti and Dana don’t like the tacos so they just made sandwiches at the house.

It starts to rain again and we hang out at the house, relax, read, nap, watch tv… and then we get ready to go to dinner, our reservations are at 6:30 at Café Atlantic and we’re really looking forward to it. We go in and visit the desert trays… wow – layered chocolate cake with cream and strawberries, a hummingbird cake, toll house pie, a lemon pie.. it all looks good. BM wants to eat dinner, then eat desert, then go by a place we haven’t gone to yet to get homemade ice cream, and THEN go by the slushie place. She maintains that the slushie is a drink, so it doesn’t even count, it just goes in all the cracks. Ambitious!!

They seat u s upstairs, and it’s a nice beach lodge feeling to it – and everything looks great. We have a crazy/drunk guy at the table next to us, and his female partner is in her bathing suit bottoms – it’s kind of an upscale feel to the place (even though it’s still island culture), the bathing suit seems a little off. But it’s nothing compared to what the guy is doing. He’s talking to his date or his food, not sure which, and the top of his voice and repeatedly (like a mantra)… “Kill the fish, cook the fish, and take them to the restaurant “… serisouly, over and over… and then he even does some kind of withc doctor chant over the food, “zoom walla, walla”... he changes things up a bit, “Let us keep killing fish” “Thank god for dead fish!”. BM is watching them like tv - I'm listening to them like radio (my back is to them).

Patti gets crab stuff shrimp (which is like crab cake stuffed shrimp), BP tries scallops and gets shrimp with it, BM gets the steak and shrimp kabobs, Dana gets a fried platter, and I got the special, grouper topped with lump crab meat and hollandaise. It was ALL delicious! BM has a sauce that goes with her kabobs, and each time she dips something in the sauce she says aloud, “dip” – and she dips them all at once, so it’s: “Dip. Dip. Dip. Dip. Dip.”…. we watch in awe until she realizes what she’s doing and we all bust out laughing. We’re worried that we’re now giving the crazy guy some competition.

We’re getting kind of full, and while it’s a certainty that we’re getting those desserts (Dana and I get the chocolate strawberry cake, Patti gets the lemon, BP gets the Hummingbird cake (which is like an apple spice cake), and BM gets the Toll House pie (it’s served warm with vanilla bean ice cream and it tastes like a chocolate chip cookie that is straight out of the oven)… we’re now discussing how ridiculous it is that we even thought we were going for seconds and thirds on dessert. We talk about going to Sweet tooth in the morning – they also have breakfast items, BP says well maybe if they have “ssssssssss..pastry, we can get that for breakfast.” And then BP says "I'm not really much for sweets". WHAT!? You're the one that is always looking at the deserts FIRST.

hummingbird cake

Toll House pie

And the recipes that we took pics of.... in case you want to try them for yourselves.... If you seriously want to try it, there is another pic of the recipe for the frosting that you'll need.

Toll House pie recipe...

As we pay the bill, another waiter comes by to take the check and he sees Patti’s coin purse that she bought at one of the shops on the island. He asks her, “How are you enjoying the purse?”…OMG! It’s the guy that sold it to her! And this is not the first or even second time that this has happened. There is a lady that works at Dajio that also works at the slushie place – and someone that works at the slushie place also works at a store that I went into today. It’s like a weird Twilight Zone episode where there are actually only three people in town besides you.

We actually do go by Sweet Tooth because they say they have homemade icecream – we figure we can get some and freeze it and eat it later. But we go in and it’s just normal ice cream, we can’t be tempted by that, but BP gets a Danish for the morning, and we go by the slushie place (on our way we passed another photo opp with Blackbeard and we couldn't pass it up). I get the strawberry slushie float again – and the girls now knows me, “You got that the other day too!” – that can’t be good when we’ve been there for a week and they’re already starting to know us and our order… BM is mourning the loss of slushie. What will we ever do without them?

We played another round of spades, and BP is still learning how to bid. She’s either over or under… but she and I won.

Tomorrow we head out. We have reservations on the ferry, and Patti says that the car is leaving the driveway at 9:15am no matter what. So we need to be packed and ready to go.

Lazy Day

It’s Thursday – but we called it Lazy Day… seriously, just when you didn’t think that we could do less in one day, we did it. It was a very sleepy day, and last night after I finished writing the blog (and failed in uploading it), I woke BP up and told her to go to bed. She was sitting with her legs crossed, but laying back on the couch. I had to shake her for quite a while, and then she woke up really confused and groggy. She says to me, “I didn't know I was sleeping”… and this morning has no memory of it, but she asked, “Did I say something to you last night?”… it was cute.

In other sleep related oddities, BM came downstairs this morning and asked if anyone yelled, “BIG FAT COW!!” (say that loudly with a high pitched voice and you’ll almost have it right) – We just bust out… um no… she asks us a few more times, as if we’re lying and we’re going to change our answer. NO – no one said big fat cow – that’s why she woke up, she heard someone downstairs yelling “Big fat cow!”… must have been an interesting dream.

We finally get moving at about 10 and head to a late breakfast back at Dajio so that Dana can taste that French toast for Ellie. We had a GOOFY waitress this time – really scatter-brained. She repeats everything and tells us how confused she gets, and that she forgets everything. She said that she'll put our orders into the computer after she gets waters for another table because the computer takes all of her focus. We're a little worried about our food. It takes a little longer than when we’ve been here in the past, and we’re regulars now - they're setting up for lunch (which starts at 11 and we're just getting our breakfast). At some point and she *SMACKED* BM on the back – who then sits up straight, stiff with pain - "oh do you have sunburn?... Have you tried putting vinegar on it?" Thanks for the tip. She’s working with another table who came in right after us and she asks them if they mind if she sits with them while she takes their order, and they get their food WAY late.

The food was incredible. Again. I could not go there and not get the Eggs Oscar, so I did. BP and Patti got omelets, and Dana and BM got the French toast. Dana said that it was so good that it melted in her mouth, and she didn’t share even one bite of it with anyone. We also ordered another dish to share, the eggs trejas (?) – I may have messed that up – they were eggs with spices and served with corn tortillas (which I’m not a fan of)… it was ok. But I’m glad that I didn’t order it as my main dish.

Eggs Trejas

Dana with her French toast!

We’re getting ready to leave and Patti decided to hit the restroom before we got on the bikes to go around to some more shops. We all waited for her to come back and it was getting to be a really long time, maybe even up to 10 minutes, and we just assumed she was having some issues… She comes back and she does NOT look good, pale and shaky, so I thought that she was getting sick from something. She barely speaks, and when she does, her lip is quivering and she needs water. She finally can tell us that she got locked into the bathroom and apparently it was scary. She came out a little traumatized. The place was small and has no ventilation. It was HOT - she got overheated and we didn't even hear her banging on the door and screaming. Dana said that she heard something that she thought was Patti walking back from the bathroom, but then she looked up and she was never there, it must have been Patti banging. But we didn’t hear a thing. Scary.

Once Patti cools down we head out on bikes. The Brittanys hit a couple of shops that they wanted to re-visit before heading back to the house. BM is going back to work on her play - but she's also nappy, so we'll see. Dana, Patti and I went to a couple of shops we hadn’t been to yet, and we went to the historical society. It was really interesting; they had a few different displays. They had a room dedicated to Muzel Bryant who was a lifelong Ocracoke native and one of the only long standing black families on the island. The Wright brothers made their first flight just 3 months before she was born – and she died at age 104 in 2008. They also had artifacts from every war that affected the island, from the civil war to WW II.

One of the most educational rooms for me was the study of the island “brogue” – it’s almost like the creole of New Orleans. Linguists have studied and documented their dialect, differences in grammar and vocabulary use and they had a dvd documenting what they found. It was playing in the room, and I bought a copy of it to take home – it may be useful for my Linguistics class. We learned new terms that the natives use - mommuck (to bother or harass), dingbatter (foreigner with no knowledge of island culture), quamish (sick to the stomach), O'cocker (native); and the russian rat (HUGE rodents found on the island that we hope not to see). They also say their “I” as an “oy” – so “high tide” is “hoy Toid”. They went around and videotaped natives talking to each other and they show all of that on the dvd, it’s very difficult to understand them with all the different words and idioms in addition to the brogue

We also ride down to the British cemetery -a memorial for 4 British soldiers who washed up on shore after their sub was bombed in the WW II...

The British cemetery

BP stopped off at the book store to buy the book that she already had once, but lost, and she had her own odd bathroom experience. She asked for a bathroom, and they walked off… um hello??... when she came back she had a key and told BP that it was out back, through the fence and in the first door. She went around back to this REALLY tall fence that opened up into what looked like a family’s back yard (not the back of a business) – and there was only one door (so she looked for another to make sure this was the “first” door) – and there is this huge padlock on the door to what ends up being a step up from an outhouse. She was a little scared herself.

Today was our laziest day yet. We got up and around late - "breakfast" at 10:30... Then a little shopping. We all end up back at the house by 1:30 (or earlier), and then we just *crashed*. I had a little sinus headache I was trying to get rid of, BP fell asleep on the front porch while reading... We all took big fat naps. The dangerous part was that we were using each other as a gauge – I would wake up and see that BM was still sleeping so I’d go back to sleep – BM would wake up and see that I was still sleeping and do the same. Not good. BM did some work on her play, we watched a little American Ninja, and we got up around 3:30 to get ready to go eat dinner. I told you we were lazy.

We tried to go to the Cafe Atlantic because it was strongly recommended by our dolphin captain, but they were crazy busy, so we went back to Dajio. That’s right, we’re eating at the same restaurant twice in one day, and really for our only 2 meals of the day. On the drive to the restaurant the song “Lazy Day” comes on the radio – there is a consensus that this is our theme song for the day.

We get to Dajio and they bring out the bread, and OMG – there is this cornbread in there that is barely bread – it’s more like a corn mash that is put in bread form. It tastes very much like that corn tomalito at Chevy’s (the little corn ball). We are loving it. BM got the steak Oscar (topped with lump crab meat, asparagus and hollandaise) which came with these AMAZING mashed potatoes seasoned with horseradish; BP got the chicken romalade with the mashed potatoes, Patti and I got the lump crab mac and cheese (YUM), Dana got the salad that she ordered for lunch on our first trip to Dajio’s because she loved it so much. This is our last meal there – we will miss it. There was a live musician there tonight, and we really liked him – BM and Dana even bought his CD!

The cornbread...
Lump crab meat mac and cheese...
Steak Oscar... and those potatoes!

Chicken romolade...

We head out, and as we get in the car, as further proof of our lazy day, the Lazy Song was on the radio AGAIN - TO and FROM the restaurant. “Today I don’t feel like doing anything… I’m just gonna lay in my bed.. “ We go by and get our slushies for the day (and get mermaid pictures) and head home.

It’s getting a little later, but it’s hard to tell because there are no clocks in this house - except for the one in the that is stuck on 5:00 (BM said the first day, "I think that clock is wrong..") - but it’s actually a Jimmy Buffet thing saying "its 5:00 somewhere". So it’s easy to lose track of time here - it’s like a casino - they're trying to lull us into island time. And it’s working. The only clocks we have are on our pagers and BP is phoneless after an incident yesterday at the beach. She went into the ocean... With her phone in her pocket. UGH!! She’s going through a mourning period and withdrawal.

We decide that we’re going to walk down to Springer’s point to see the sunset. It’s supposed to be a great view, but you can’t park there, you can’t even take bikes past a certain point on the path – so we hike over there. We get to the trail, and it seems endless – it winds through the woods on a very narrow path. About half way in I realize that we’re going to watch the sun set, and we’re going to have to walk back through this wooded area in the dark… maybe a flashlight would have been good. Well, we finally make it to the beach and the sun is behind a bank of clouds so we can’t really see anything, but it’s a great spot. Very pretty. Since we can’t see the sun set anyway, we decide to head back while we still have some light so we can get through the woods. There’s quite a bit of cover, so it seems dark – very reminiscent of the woods in the Wizard of Oz – and these trees are gnarly looking, they could definitely be the sort that jumps to life and grabs us. Dana is more concerned about killer possums – she’s sure that one is going to jump out and attack us. BP and I try to tell her that possums are scared of people, they don’t “get” you. As we’re walking down the road back to the house, a cat walks out of the brush and BP and Patti nearly jump out of their skins…. BP says after all that talk, she thought it was a possum – I remind her that possums don’t get people. BM decided not to come down with us, so we concoct a story to tell her when we get back – the sunset was the most beautiful that we’ve ever seen, and it was only overshadowed by the fact that we saw dolphins swim right up to the shore while we were standing there (and when she didn’t believe that we were going to tell her that it was a lie, but we did see about 5 or 6 just right off the shore, playing)… she was very upset that she missed it. But we didn’t let it stand for long and told her the truth.

Our view of the sunset...

BP's dirty feet from our walk..

After we gave BP and BM their lesson in spades last night, BM is fired up to play again – BP not so much, but we twist her arm. They get a little cocky and say that they’re ready for a challenge, so we propose that it will be Patti and me against the Brittanys… challenge accepted! They start off well… at least in terms of scoring. They’re having a little difficulty getting their bids right so they’re under bidding and setting us. The first two rounds, we go negative numbers. We finally get the hang of bidding with their bidding (leave two open tricks) – and then the pendulum swings. They start bidding more than they think they can get to compensate for their under bidding, and they start heading back down in the negative. It’s all good – you have to do that to figure out how to bid better and I think that BM is hooked. Once we kick their butts, we play a round of LCR, and then start a game of Farkle. Patti is making up Farkle rules.. and this is another 1500 points, and that’s another 3000… and we wonder how she wins.

BM has “rocky top” – a term I coined as the opposite of “shaky leg” – when BM and I get tired, we have to shake out legs to keep them from feeling uncomfortable, but if you’re in a position where you can’t shake your legs, you rock, like you might if you had autism… Here’s a picture of them playing Farkle – BM is a blur because of rocky top!!

Tomorrow we’re planning on going to the beach in the morning and going to Café Atlantic for dinner (we made reservations) – what we do in between who knows, but it’s our last full day in Ocracoke. We have to return the bikes in the morning. We’ll really miss them, even BP and BM have admitted how much they’ve really enjoyed biking around town.

Experimental pictures

I took my ipod out today because I have this new app I wanted to try that will take pics in a complete 360... here's a pic of the beach in 360. I think I should have put the water in the middle.. - it looks like there's water on both sides...

I tried this on with two layers of pics - you can continue to turn and add to the 360... and BM walked up on the second round so she looks a little god-like in the pic...

I decided to just use it for a panorama and not a full 360 on the boat the view kept changing, so stitching wasn't really working... there may be some fish-eye effect happening as it tries to stitch 3 different pics together.

It's Dolphin Day!

It’s Wednesday… (I know it’s Thursday morning, but the wifi was crashing last night so I couldn’t upload). We’re up and we all head out on our bikes to the Creekside Cafe for breakfast, "the best breakfast in town"...

BP on her trike as we head to breakfast

Patti outside the Creekside - a parrothead sign!

We read the menu and it seems pretty normal. They do have a crab omelet (which BM orders) and a prime rib omelet (which I order), but the rest is just breakfast. I asked our waiter (who looks like Ethan from Survivor) what is the one thing that we can't leave this place without eating. His response? "I'm not sure that there's anything. (Pause to think) Um maybe the blah, blah, blah" (I tuned out because it was the thing that was like the grand slam at Denny's).. "Um, that's a good deal". Well I'm not looking for a good deal - I'm looking for creme brulee french toast!

While we’re waiting on our food, the Brittanys are reading the blog from the day before and they’ll laugh randomly, and I have to ask what they're laughing at. Its nice to reflect on our vacation - even it was just yesterday. J

The food is not spectacular - Dana is pleased with her normal french toast, the steak omelet is PACKED with steak and onions. Its like a philly cheesesteak omelet, a little greasy... The cheese grits are hard and not cheesy... the biscuits and gravy are a little doughy. Patti and BP played it safe and got a normal omelet and were satisfied not wowed, but not disgusted). Which brings us to the crab omelet. Its like a crab cake in your eggs and cheese (and later we discuss it and it’s literally like someone took a leftover crab cake and chopped it up on the grills and rolled it into the egg. In the first bite that seems ok (not amazing, but ok) – but upon following bites it becomes just really fishy and gross.. It turns the stomach a bit - BM needs a bathroom and asks Ethan for directions - he gets all stiff and wide eyed like he's come home high and trying to hide something from his parents, "Down and to the right" - but we think that it was more in reaction to the customers at the table next to us. He moves right into apologizing to them for their scrambled eggs taking so long. They got there just after us and have no food yet. He’s not a very good waiter.

Dana's french toast... nothing like yesterday.

My steak omelet - it's basically a philly cheesesteak sandwich with egg subbing for the bread... no multi-colored potatoes.. but the biscuit was good.

We get out of there and take advantage of the cool morning to bike around to a few more shops that we haven’t hit yet. We just love the little puppies that the owners have in their shops, and it’s fun to look at all the original artwork and stuff that’s been locally made, there is jewelry, pottery, hand-carved and hand-painted items everywhere. We went to a thrift store and I found something that I couldn’t leave behind – a raccoon paw bottle opener. A real raccoon paw… with a REAL bottle opener! And it was only two bucks. We went back and got a few shirts that we'd had our eyes on and BM and I got a couple of slushies before heading back to the house to get ready to go to the beach. We’re getting our bearings around town and are much more confident traveling independently, so when one person is done with a shop they just head back to the house.

Outside one of the cute shops

How much would you pay for this hat? (if the answer isn't $54.95, then keep walking). But BP looks cute!

The hammock chair... love at first sight

The fresh squeezed orange juice slushie, and the mermaid's delight (fresh strawberry slushie float) - yum!! It was like ice cream topped with frozen strawberries.

Today I really don’t have much to blog about – it was breakfast (blah), shopping, beach (yay) and then the dolphin cruise. Hmmm… ok, that seems like a lot more than it did in my head. Well we get ready to head out to the beach and we go back to the one that is across from the ponies that Dana and Patti went to yesterday and liked. They’re right, it’s MUCH better – the water isn’t as crushing, the waves not as high, and we were able to float around on our rafts. The waves do bring us in, but its more like the wave pool than the wash cycle. BP is a little skiddish in the water and spends most of the time covered up completely to avoid further sun burn. BM even wears a shirt today to cover her red (that’s big for her). At about 3:30 we head back to the house to get ready for the cruise. We have to be there at 6:30 and we all have to shower and eat.

Heading down the boardwalk to the "pony" beach

While the other girls shower, I make up a quick batch of spaghetti for us for dinner so that we can get something in our bellies but not take up too much time. We bought some meat, sauce and pasta the day we got to the island in case we had a night where we just wanted to have a cheap, relaxing dinner at the house. It worked out perfectly.

We drove over to Jolly Roger to meet our captain. It’s a small boat that holds a max of 6 people – perfect for us. I honestly didn’t have much hope of seeing a dolphin, but Dana really had her heart set on it. Her sign name is a dolphin for pete’s sake. There were a few times when I faked her out (and mostly not on purpose) – I just saw movement and asked what it was… not a dolphin.
We're on a BOAT!!!

Our captain - BM thinks he looks like Micahel J. Fox, Dana think Rick Ankiel...

Our captain was very nice, a native of the island that seems to have his hand in just about every kind of business involving the water. He has two of these boats, fishing boats, banana boats, parasailing, jet skis… and I think more. He took us down the length of the island and out to the inlet and back – we looked to the horizon for anything that looked like anything and saw nothing. We had really kind of given up on seeing anything and BM started chatting with him about tips for shelling (he said to go as the tide is leaving, and that the high tide cart is always off by 90 minutes, and the best beach was the beach that we just came from near the ponies)… but in mid-sentence he points behind us and sees a dolphin! We all turn just in time to see it jump out of the water. I catch it on video, but each time we see it, it’s fairly far off and way too fast to catch on a still camera. We see one dolphin about five times – or see five dolphins one time. He says that normally there is more than one and that they play together nearer to the boat… BUT he tells that the people that are on the “big dolphin cruise ship” haven’t seen any at all. And even though it wasn’t an up close and personal sighting, it was a great time. We loved the boat ride, the salty sea spray, the company, the sunset, and the excitement of “Oh, there he is!”.

The sun setting....

This is the pic we have of the dolphin... its the dark dolphin-shaped spot on the right of the picture. It looked MUCH closer in person. Keep in mind this was captured on a wide shot video with very little zoom (zoomed out to catch a wider field of possible dolphins)... so while it may not be thrilling to you, it is to Dana. :)

This is what a boat does to hot sexy hair...

We get ice cream on the way home and once we get there we all change into our comfy clothes and settle in to watch “RENT” – but the dvd doesn’t work.. we put in another movie, but we ended up playing a bit of spades. Patti and I love spades, but the Brittanys had never played. We thought BP would really like it, but it was BM that really got into it. Patti tried to go nil on one round and BM and I were able to set her… we screamed a little loud, and its possible we disturbed Dana’s sleep. If we did, I’m sure we’ll find out tmw. Everyone else is in bed and I’m just finishing up the blog while BP sleeps on the couch with The Nanny playing again.

In the morning we’re going to Dajio for breakfast again – Dana has to try that French toast (Ellie has told her she needs to try it – Hi Ellie!). The weather is supposed to be bad tmw, according to our captain, lots of rain, so we’ll play the rest by ear. Night! (or morning!)