The important B's in life - Breakfast, Beach and Bingo!

Last night we ended with card games – we thought we were going to play Phase 10, but someone forgot to pack it, so we played Skip-bo instead. At one point BP was kicking it, playing card after card, and I said, “Oh BP, you’re butter!” Totally confused look… “Cause you’re on a roll… you know… like butter… is on a roll”. She lit up like she does when she gets super excited – put her cards down (in mid turn), grabs her pager and types something. I said, did you just update your facebook status to say that you were like butter… in the middle of your turn??? NO PHONES!!! We are on vacation!!

We adjourned the game after Dana unceremoniously kicked our butts in the second game and everyone was going to bed and I was going to post the blog. I had it written because I make notes during the day so it’s not all done in one sitting, I just had to upload it and add pics – and the girls that were too tired and had to go to bed, then spend at least 90 minutes watching re-runs of “The Nanny”. I don’t get it.

The red is fading, but not quickly enough. BM still needs to be slathered with aloe every few hours. She tries to rotate so that she doesn’t feel bad having the same person have to rub her down. The oddest thing is that she’s fairly delusional about the whole thing – in one breath she can talk about how torturous it is to wear a bra, beg someone to put aloe on her, and then insist that she’s now “brown”… um no. You are not brown BM. You are red, and you are pink – there are no earth tones involved at this point. Here’s a little hint if you’re confused, “brown” doesn’t hurt.

We all start to come alive this morning and we head down to breakfast at Dajio (D And J In Ocracoke) on our bikes (and trike) - on our way we see these two cute English bulldogs lounging in Adirondack chairs. It looks like a “wish you were here” postcard – these guys are just really comfy in their chairs, and it’s so cute. BM really loves it because she has always wanted English Bulldogs and this has just solidified that. The owner was very chatty, having them speak (they didn't) - and play with the ball. Just another friendly face in Ocracoke!

Patti and I pull up to restaurant on the bikes with BP right behind us (Dana stayed at the house because she doesn’t like breakfast). We park the bikes, and look around - no BM. We normally try to have one of us take up the rear to make sure that no other trike incidents happen without backup… We don't see her... And then we see the trike round the corner. All three of us BUST out laughing!! There is this guy who is maybe 20 feet from us in the front of the restaurant, I'm just going to call him Dick – he puts his hands on his hips and throws his head back and laughs really loud. Totally mocking us, but meant to be just for his wife (Jane?) - I will not let that go. No reason to be a Richard on vacation, Dick. I say "She's on a trike, yah, we think it’s funny"... He does it AGAIN! Hands on hips, head back and laugh - and this time to our face! "It’s only reserved for the elderly and disabled... Its humorous.." And I give him evil eye that should make him feel like he was being mocked for mocking. BM has been oblivious to all of this as she's parked her trike - and Dick and Jane have a dog (Spot?)... BM is super nice to them, pets Spot, chats with them. And when we sit down I tell her about Dick and Jane - and maybe she killed them with kindness, after I killed them with sarcasm. Very disappointing – the first time we’ve encountered anything close to rudeness on the island. Pretty sure he’s not a local.

Breakfast is amazing as expected. I just can’t even tell you. Really. AMAZING. I have the eggs Oscar (eggs benedict with crab meat and asparagus, and a little change up with the hollandaise, it has a little chipotle kick to it), Patti and BM have omelets – but not like normal omlets, it’s like chicken and feta and spinach and something else amazing in there – omelets have never tasted like this. Then there are the “house potatoes”, we see colors of potatoes we’ve never seen before (pink?) along with purple, orange (sweet potatoes) and a few varieties of white… and the BACON? Please. Cut thick, country bacon, perfectly cooked. The most amazing thing however is the crème brulee French toast. It is layers of toast soaked overnight in the crème brulee, and then encrusted with caramelized sugar… it’s breakfast desert. The “crème” is almost the consistency of cheese cake stuffed breakfast items, but it’s infused in the toast, not stuffed in it. I wish I could send you the taste – it is decadent. We ordered one of them for us to share so that we could all try more things. So much breakfast; so little time. We overhear the table of ladies next to us order mimosas (and instantly shoot looks to each other… WHAT??) and other yummy looking things, and we know that we have to come back to try other things and get our mimosas on.

Eggs Oscar with potatoes and bacon...

AHHHHH-MAZING layered creme brulee French toast...

We leave breakfast fat and happy, and with separate missions. BM is not so happy with the trike - the road kinda leans, and when you have 3 wheels you feel the lean more. So now BM is thinking of trading it in for a bike, but BP tries it first, and she loves it! The seat is more comfortable and she thinks it’s fun, so BM takes BP's bike. She adjusts the seat and immediately finds something else wrong with it. We now suspect that there is nothing wrong with any of the bikes. It’s user error, there can’t be something “wrong” with every bike that BM touches, especially given that no one else has issues with those same bikes.

On the way back, we got sunglasses. BP found like 5 pairs, who knew she was such a sunglass horse. BM bought some huge bug eyed glasses which have already made their way to facebook, and I bought some magic polarized glasses (no squinting!), and we hit a few other shops before heading back to the house to just relax while Dana and Patti went to the beach. They went to a different beach today, and they say it was much better than the washing machine beach - they were actually able to use the rafts and hang out in the water. But we were too red to be out there again regardless – maybe tomorrow.

While we were at the house the phone rang – a phone we have no business answering, but we did just in case it was the owners of the house trying to reach us. It was a recorded call about affordable burial plans for people ages 40-82... “OLD people”… BP pointed at me. Not funny. From now on, no baby ya-yas, only those that would be eligible for the affordable burial will be allowed to join us on our trips. All travelers will be required to show proof of their prepaid burials before starting on the trip.

In the afternoon Patti and Dana got back and we caught up, while they showered I went with the Brittanys to get tacos and mail a postcard for BP on our bikes. There is this tiny little taco stand with authentic food, the tacos come in threes, so we got three different kinds and we each had one of each: ground beef, charritos, and these amazing shrimp fajita tacos. There were a few other things that we wanted to try on the menu and we talked about going back - BP says that there are so many places she wants to eat - that we might just have to eat more than 3 times a day.

When we got back to the house Patti and Dana had gone exploring and shopping - got a fish (wooden), some cool socks, and went to some scary little thrift store and had to figure out a way to get out without buying anything. We’ll have to get them to write up more of their adventures, I wasn’t there and I’m afraid my second hand accounts of what they did fall pretty short.

The locals play bingo on Tuesday nights and there are signs posted around town – it helps out the local volunteer fire department, so it goes to a good cause and we thought it would be fun to have a little time with the village folk. We grab a little dinner before we go, but BM stays behind to nap and work on the play that she’s doing on the 24th (The Visit at Stray Dog Theatre) - but when we get back from bingo she’s finishing up “My Best Friend’s Wedding” and still talking in future tense about how she’s going to work on it… hmmm. But she said she had a great nap.

Bingo was super fun – we get there and there’s a line to get in! But it turns out that they have a system, they only let one group in at a time to buy their cards and get settled. It feels a little like an illegal speak easy. The door person cracks the door and just sticks their head out, “How many?” – and then she only lets in that group and quickly closes the door behind them. There are rules posted outside the door and rule number one is absolutely no saving seats – they’re serious. We get in a get our seats, and we are seated next to a group of kids, one of whom is celebrating his 18^th birthday tonight, and one of his friends looks like Tom Welling about 10 years ago (like first season of Smallville). The guy calling the numbers is hilarious – down home country NC charm – but he’s funny because he talks about how he hates this and calling numbers is the last thing on his list of things to do. He cracked jokes all night and threw out a few good humored insults to the deserving. Our table kept getting in trouble because we were talking to much (we weren’t it was the group of kids) – but they were good kids, very entertaining. A few times we caught Dana watching them like tv… (that door don’t lock). But there were serious old ladies in there that kept yelling “SHHHHH!”

There were a lot of games, and we are not bingo players so we were a little nervous that we would know all the games – like “the layer cake” (three alternating rows of bingo), “floating postage stamp” (4 in a square anywhere on your card), lucky 7 (just the first person to get any 7 numbers covered on their card), and the best was “the worst card” – you all stand up and he calls the numbers. If you have a number anywhere on one of the cards, that card is out, and when all of your cards are out, you sit. The last person standing with a blank card wins. I actually won one game! I got $20, and Dana won the last blackout that was worth $500!! But she didn’t get the $500 because you have to get the blackout in the first 53 numbers that are called… after 53 numbers have been called it’s only worth $50. But she didn’t get the $50 either – because if several people win then you split the pot. She ended up with $5. BUT she won the $500 game. It was fun times.

We chatted for a little after we all got home, watched a little Drop Dead Diva and introduced the “kids” to Arrested Development before calling it a night. BP was sad tonight, “I can’t believe that vacation is almost over… “ WHAT? Just yesterday you were saying that you can’t believe that it’s “only Monday”… and 24 hours later we’ve moved into “almost over” status?

Not sure what the plans are for tmw – but I do know that we’re confirmed on the dolphin cruise at 6:30, and we’re heading to breakfast at a place that claims to have the best breakfast. They’re going to have some convincing to do after today.

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.

Kitty Hawk to Ocracoke!

Hello! Welcome to DAY TWO (6/11/11) here in OBX (that’s the slang for Outer Banks, and now you’re as cool as we are). Before I started on day two actually, I wanted to share a few more stories from the day before that I was reminded of by my faithful cohorts. I know this is a little late – but believe it or not, we’ve been keeping busy. Things should wind down to island time in the next couple of days and I’ll be back on track.

So far on the trip and really it was just day two, and really Friday was mostly travel – so it’s almost like it was just day .5 and Saturday was day one. But BM has pointed out that she is already exhausted. We are efficient travelers and it’s hard for the little ones to keep up. Every time we get near a car they fall asleep. But digressing – we seem to be collecting catch phrases of the trip, and it’s not like we’re trying. On the trip up the phrase was “You missed it!” – someone would say, “Oh look at that cool sign/car/thing/whatever”… “where?”… “You missed it!”. It still continues and we chuckle each time because only now are we starting to manufacture it.

The other phrase is “What’s that smell?” and I laugh just thinking about it because we had a full day of smoke everywhere. The whole part of the island smelled like bonfire – we had come back to the room for a bit to unwind and then we were going back out to grab food. Patti steps out into the hallway, and gets this look on her face like she just smelled something unpleasant – she turns to us and says “What’s that SMELL??” – I laughed because I thought she was joking because the only thing you can smell anywhere (including in the buildings) is smoke. She looks at me, not breaking, seriously wanting to know what that smell is…. Um smoke? OH!!! DUH!!!! But this morning the wind was blowing inland, so you could actually breathe. I know I keep mentioning the smoke, but it’s like standing next to a bonfire at all times. Our clothes smell like smoke, eyes burns, throat burns… there just isn’t a way to forget about this smoke. Unless you’re Patti.

Also yesterday, we checked into the hotel and I was investing info while Patti and Dana were wrapping up the details with the check in. I come back into the lobby, Patti and Dana are walking toward me with huge grins on their faces and something behind their backs – I’m concerned. They pull out WRIST BANDS!! What??? My face FALLS – Dana says “I knew we should have had a camera!” – I have instant flash back to our week in Italy at the resort that forced us to wear wrist bands everywhere… They explain, it’s not that bad… We have to wear these wrist bands for the activities… what??... just for breakfast in the morning, and we don’t have to wear them, we just have to SHOW them. Ok. I can do that. But if we would have had to wear arm bands on vacation again… hmmmm…

We had a plan – breakfast, then the Wright Brothers memorial and then to the Kite Festival… we went to breakfast, and then we came back, packed… and got BP up. She’s a sleeper. We told her that we’d waited long enough, it was 11 and we couldn’t wait anymore because of check out. She couldn’t believe that we let her sleep that long!! And her alarm didn’t even go off – Um, yah, sorry it’s only 8am. So she got ready and did the food thing while we loaded the car. Wright brothers is just a half mile away and they open at 9am – so we’re good. It’s pretty warm already, but we notice that there’s no smoke in the air! Nice! So we’re lucky to have the wind blowing the other way, but when we get in the car, it smells like smoke… and when we walked into the Wright Brothers center – smelled like fire… it’s going to take a long time to get that smell out of this area.

The Wright Brothers memorial was very interesting to me – I had watched a documentary to prep. I like knowing a little before I go so that I know what I’m looking at and what to look for. Here are some of Susen’s interesting facts about the Wright Brothers – in the course of inventing the airplane, they also invented the air tunnel and the method of using it to test for aerodynamics, they had to create their own propellers out of wood with just wood working tools, and even when recreating them scientists were amazed that they had 90% accuracy – most planes today are like 93%. They selected Kitty Hawk because of the wind (duh) and the sand (safer landings) – and Wilbur never let Orville fly because it was very dangerous and he didn’t want to report back to his mother that he had killed his baby brother. Neither of them were ever married, and they lived with their parents and their sister (also never married) – in 1901 they were going to give up, convinced that flight would not be conquered for 100 years (when in fact it only took 66 years to get from Kitty Hawk to the moon) – their sister convinced them to go to this national conference of researchers who were discussing flight. She told them that maybe they would meet someone who could help them – they went, and discovered that they knew more than anyone there. THEY were the experts, and so it spurred them on to continue. Their first flight was only 120 feet and lasted 12 seconds… ok – there you go. You have the Wright stuff.

When you go it’s a little visitor center with a few items in it and a recreation of a couple of their planes, and then you go outside and they have markers where the flights started and where each of their first four flights landed. It’s pretty cool to see it laid out with markers like that. In the pictures you can see the bit white marble stones. The fourth flight was pretty far in comparison to the other 3 – 852 feet, 59 seconds. There is also a large stone memorial to them, and it’s at the top of Kill Devil Hill – we walked up to the top of it, and toward the top of the hill we were huffing a bit. It’s quite a slope, but there’s a great view from the top. The Brittanys kept calling it a mountain… not exactly a mountain, but it did feel like it toward the top. There were signs all over warning us of “cactus area” and they had these pictures of “prickly pears” – BM was really excited and wanted to see a prickly pear because that’s what Baloo (the bear) eats in The Jungle Book. We were on the look out, and all we saw were these brown dried up LITTLE burs all over the place – and then we realize that those are the prickly pears. BM is very disappointed to find out that sometimes the fact doesn’t measure up to the fiction.

It’s early in the morning (9-10am), but it’s blazing hot sun and we’re on very flat land with lots of sand, so we are melting just a little, and it’s a large area – I wish I had my pedometer to give you an idea. But we had a nice little hike from the flight markers to the memorial and back down. We found a little AC and cooled off, I’ve added a picture of the girls and their fans. And I thought this was really cool – this is a picture from 1901 of their “camp” (two tents) and what the area looked like then. TOTALLY desolate!

The markers..... #4 is waaay down there

The "mountain"

The view from the top - the building way in the distance is the visitor center.

Cooling off

The camp in 1901 - they put an X to mark the spot...

We found the kite fest and it was a little hike back into the area where it was supposed to be. It’s at a park that is famous for the tallest sand dunes on the east coast – people go sand boarding there and just take hikes in the dunes. I can NOT imagine just hiking through this, the sand is so fine that it just buries your feet as you take a step. It’s like walking on a stair master, and it just sucks the energy from you (while feeling like you’re in a desert). We get to the end of the boardwalk and we don’t see kites. Where are the kites? They’re supposed to be MASSIVE – we’ve seen pics of the festival and it looks more like the Macy’s day parade that a kite – these things are THAT big. We can see that there are endless sand dunes and people are walking across what really looks like miles of sand, and we are not up for that (did I mention each step feels like you’re on a stair master?). Dana braves it and walks off the deck of the boardwalk and I decide to go for it and follow, but only to see if we can see kites from below. We get down and round the first sand dune and it’s impressive. HUGE kites in the air, we can see one that is a whale, and seems to be life sized, the only problem is that it’s seriously far away and there is no way that we’re making it that far. I mention that to someone else that is standing down there, saying that I know there has to be a better way, there is no way that those people lugged their kites from here to there. He said no, that there was an entry from the road further up – ahhhh haaa!!
BP not thrilled that there might be more walking across a desert to see kites...
Seriously miles of dunes!!

The kites from what we can see around the corner....
We hang out in the visitor center for a second, make sure we’ve gathered everyone up, and we drive down the road a bit until we see these massive, beautiful kites. We just pull over by the side of the road and take pics from the car. The Britts have commented that we make them tired, we are efficient vacationers! We have done Kitty Hawk, and a “drive by” Kite Festival – we are good – and we’re ready to head south to our final destination.

We stop off to get lunch before the road trip – we pass several interesting stores like “Try My Nuts” and “The Bird Store” (we wondered what they specialized in). The atmosphere in this part of OBX is very commercial – it reminds us of the strip in Branson a little bit, lots of T-shirt and souvenir shops, mini-golf, and things like that, and LOTS of seafood restaurants. We stop off at Miller’s because we can eat by the ocean, and someone else recommended it. The food was great – I had a grilled tuna sandwich (like tuna steak), Patti had a nice shrimp wrap with avocado, Dana didn’t have chicken, and BM tried fried oysters! She’s trying something new everyday. She was ok with it, until she decided to look in it after she bit off half of it – big mistake for her – but great for me and Patti because we got to finish off her oysters. While we’re eating we’re watching the people out on the sound (the west side of the island that faces the mainland) and they’re wind surfing, kind of – we’re not sure what to call it, but they’re on boogie boards with their feet attached like they’re skiing, and then they’re being propelled by a huge kite like thing that acts like a sail. It looks like it takes WAY too much coordination – it’s like surfing while trying to fly a kite. We think they should call it some combination of kite and surfing… kurfing, or kifing…. Later on the way down the road we see signs for “Kite surfing” lessons. Hmmm. I guess that works too.

The trip down the banks will take about 3 hours – and that includes a ferry ride to Ocracoke island. Everything in the southern part of the island, with the exception of Ocracoke village, is a national park. That means that it’s really well preserved, not commercial at all – and just lots of beach area. We get to the end of the line, and hop the ferry. We drive on, and we’re at the front, so we have a great view once we hit the water. We start moving, but its subtle – and there is another ferry pulling in at the same time, so since they’re moving in the opposite direction it looks almost like we’re not moving, but that it’s just that optical illusion that makes us think we’re moving. I play with the rest of the girls a bit and say “wow, it feels like we’re moving”… Patti says, “Yah it does.. weird”… and then I say look at that dock moving… they finally realize that we really ARE moving – it was a cool effect to have your brain fooled like that. To be moving, and feel like you’re moving, but to have your brain think that you weren’t moving but only feeling like you were moving… hard to explain. But the best part was when BM realized that we really were moving – she totally freaked out, “WE’RE ON THE FERRY!?!?!” – she was even further behind – she said that she didn’t even realize that when we parked that we were on the ferry, she just thought that we were still waiting to get on and then we’re moving. We all laughed pretty hard. She’s a fun toy sometimes.

The ferry ride was about 40 minutes and a nice ride – seagulls started following the boat and flying along with us. We couldn’t really figure out why, but it looks really cool to see them just gliding along with us – and then people started THROWING food at them. OH! That’s why they’re following us – it was pretty impressive to see them dive and catch the food in their beaks in mid-flight. We have a good time singing “We’re on a BOAT!” – we got our flippy floppies and we’re on a boat… never thought I’d be on a booooat….

Once we got off the ferry, there’s still a bit of a drive down south to get to the village itself. There is only one road on the island, it goes right down the middle of the banks. Really reminds us of the Florida keys, you can see water on both sides of you.

The village is so cute! Most people ride bikes and horses, or just walk to get around – not a lot of drivers and there’s limited parking. We feel a little “big” in the car and we plan on renting bikes to get around for the week. We find our place, and we’re right by the lighthouse – the house is so quaint, and it’s called “Changes in Attitude” – it’s decorated with Margaretville stuff, and they refer to it as a Parrothead house. Patti says that it was calling to her.

We get settled – find a store to get some food and supplies for the week – get some dinner, and find the slushy place that came highly recommended (fresh fruit slushies that we are really refreshing) – we have vowed to have at least one daily. J

I think that’s more than enough for the day. We did so much that it felt like two days! I’ll catch up tmw! We'll end with a great pic of BM. This was outside of the restaurant!

So, It's not exactly Europe...

The yayas are traveling again - but not to Europe. We've had several people ask us if we're blogging again this time. And I thought, why not?!

If you're not interested, no worries - just delete or unsubscribe. Just as it was last year, I write this for us, so we can remember and look back. Well this year we are Ocracoke (NC) bound! ...eventually... But first Raleigh... And then Kill Devil Hills (Kitty Hawk). Who doesn't love a little history wrapped up in their vacay? The group this year is minus Amy, and we've added some baby yayas who are studying at the knee. So its Susen, Dana, Patti and the Brittanys (Powell, who we call BP, and McKay who answers to almost anything including McKay, Britt, Brittany, and yes... even BM). We started off at Lambert airport, flying out of Delta at 7am - and once we figured out the process (you have to self check in at the computer and then stand in a reeeeally long line to weigh and drop off your bag) we headed to our gate, amid a little airport construction from damage done by the tornado on Good Friday.

We had one of those small planes that make even me feel tall - but had a very smooth and uneventful flight (save the weird "stale" guy sitting next to BM who was either flapping his legs to air out the heat from his under carriage, or gaining some kind of pleasure from the repeated motion).

Landed, got the rental - super nice Chevy Traverse that BM loves. Fits the 5 of us nicely.

We were a little hungry and it was about lunch time, and we had done a little research on the Food Network (Man vs Food). There is this place called “The Pit” in Raleigh that cooks whole pigs in a pit until the meat is so tender that they just go through it with their hands and pick out the bones. THEN they continue to cook it on the grill, marinating

it in this vinegary BBQ marinade – we couldn’t resist the promise of NC BBQ. You walk into the place and it smells amazing – like they’re cooking a whole hog in the back (they are). For starters we had fried green tomatoes (love that movie – “I’m older and I have more insurance!”), and fried pimento cheese, c’mon! It's fried cheese!

We got a variety of the BBQ and sides, including fried okra, fried chicken, pulled pork, BBQ brisket, baked beans (that included red beans and kidney beans, and bean that you would normally think of baked beans all in one dish), and of course the chopped pork which is what comes from the process with the whole hog. It was so good! The sauce is a perfect “tang” and the meat just melts in your mouth.

On the road again – it’s about noonish and we have about 3 hours to Kitty Hawk. We have a beach house rental in Ocracoke, but we don’t check in until 3pm on Saturday – so we decided to go in a day early and take our time getting down there. We have a hotel at Kitty Hawk and we’re planning to check out the “Wright” stuff (sorry for that) and then it just so happens that the Kitty Hawk kite festival is tmw, so we’re going to pop by there on our way south.

The road trip was fun – we sang along to the Hairspray soundtrack and other favorites; BM delighted (I mean DELIGHTED) in the fact that her window goes down (OH MY GOD, MY WINDOW GOES DOWN!!) – not sure what that was about, but I really took pleasure in recreating the moment from time to time.

We stopped off for a beverage at a little gas station with a one seater stall and took turns in the bathroom. But Dana got wise and decided to go into the men’s restroom. BM and I were patiently waiting our turn, chatting… and there was a little weird guy kinda of laughing along with us. He was just sitting at a table and chair in the gas station, sipping his Yoohoo, watching us and nodding along as if he were just hangin out with us. Then another man walks in and heads down the hall toward the men’s restroom and BM and I look at each other and giggle a bit, knowing that Dana is in there, and expecting there to be an awkward moment as he finds the door locked, and then again as Dana emerges from the men’s room…. But what we got was MUCH better! The guy walks up to the door, turns the handle and DOES NOT find it locked! Nope – it’s open, and he walks right in on Dana (and she wasn’t washing her hands). He backs out VERY awkwardly – comes back out to where we are now laughing a little too much – and THEN the little weird guy says in a little bit of a “Sling Blade” voice, very matter of factly, but with this HUGE grin on his face, “That door don’t lock”.

OMG!! We LOST IT! We imagine Dana being walked in on, this poor man walking in on her – and this weird sling blade dude knowing that the door didn’t lock, watching this play out and not saying anything until after the fact. Then Dana comes out and we are trying to repress the laughs (not really) –and the poor man who walked in on her tells her, “Your friends think it’s real funny”…

oops. But yah. We did.

The ride is beautiful – we follow a little stream most of the way – and the Brittanys are scanning the sides of the road for “Swamp People” – they could be anywhere. Just lurking. As we get closer to Roanke Island we cross the Alligator River. It looks like ocean, with white caps – and the bridge over it feels like we’re crossing Lake Ponchetrain into New Orleans. We’re a little slap happy and we joke that they moved it up here… we’ve been up since 4am, so it was funny, but I know that it’s not really. Off to the south we notice this HUGE plume of smoke – it’s billowing miles into the sky and looks like an erupting volcano. We start to smell smoke, and we see signs to be careful of dense smoke (Dana thought we said “dangerous smoke”… ooooh, watch out… that smoke is daaaangerous) – and we also saw signs to watch out for BEARS (“next 7 miles”).

We travel about 3 miles, and we see another sign to watch for bears “next 7 miles”. Bears must like the number 7 … there are also signs to watch out for red foxes (lame Sanford and Son references ensue: “I’m coming to see you Elizabeth!” “You DUMMY!”). Foxes, bears, dangerous smoke, and swamp people. We are overwhelmed with the potential danger that could jump out at us as a moment’s notice. As we head across the bridge into the outer banks (YAY!!) the smoke is getting thicker, like a think grey fog that’s everywhere. Once we find the hotel we step out of the car, and it smells like a bonfire, and still smoke everywhere. We learn that the big plume of smoke that we saw is a forest fire that’s been burning in the Alligator park since May 5^th (which my brain turned into “for the past 5 months”) – it’s been this smokey for overa month now and they can’t get the fire out because its surrounded by water and it’s burning underground, or something. We’re actually kind of confused by it – it seems to us you could reach it by helicopter and dump some water in there. But this smoke is everywhere – just part of life up here for now.

Well, we check in and the first thing we want to do it dip our toes in the ocean!! We are RIGHT on the beach, and we just have to walk out the back door and down the boardwalk to see ocean! BM has changed into her suit, but the rest of us are still in “toe-dipping” clothes. BP has on her skirt, but goes in anyway. The water is COOOOLD – but you do get used to it. The Brittanys look for shells for a bit – BP knee deep in the ocean and fully clothed. BM has a floating tube and tries it out, but the waves are little strong right at the shore and she gets slammed around a bit.

It’s almost time for dinner once we’re done playing – we head back to the TINY room, there are 5 of us on two regular beds and a roll out in a very small room (but we’re insisting on calling it cute). We needed some seafood and asked the locals the place to go. We end up at Bob’s, whose motto is “Eat and then get out”, we’re charmed. They have an incredible fruity sangria (yes, please!), and all you can eat crab legs and shrimp that I jump all over. Patti and BM have crab cakes (famous

for having no breading, all crab), Dana has the flounder, and BP has a pound of shrimp. We all walked away very satisfied – and still smokey.

We made a quick trip to Wal-Mart (as suggested by experienced Ocracoke vacationers because as we get further south it’s further away from supplies) and we get some food and other items for the week at the beach house. Now we’re back at the “cute” room – we have the Brittanys in the same bed because they both had what they thought were endearing stories about how they have ended up cuddling with their bedmates – so we thought that they were perfect for each other. We’ll see if they’re spooning by morning. BM is experience shoulder pain, possibly rotator cuff, from sleeping funny – the old ladies are just laughing at her a bit because she’s not old enough to experience that creaky body syndrome that is creeping up on us. It’s the simple things in life that give me pleasure.

Leavin' on a jet plane...

I wish I had no more to write... I wish I could say, oh happy travels home, no adventure, same ole, same ole, we got on a train, got on a plane - end of story. But what would be the fun of that.

Well last night at 3am I'm awakened with a phone call in the hotel room... A man with a thick accent and groggy mind do not go well together. I think I'm still in France and I keeping answering "oui, oui"... They're asking about Amy and I think its 3am.. Surely she's here long before now, her flight was due in an 10pm. They're asking if she's in my room - no, she's in the other room, with Patricia... With Patti...I honestly struggle to think of Patti's last name. Whoa. K-U-D-R-N-A.. Ok. So I go over to their room to see how she is and what happened.

Unbelievable journey that I will sum up here - she lands at 10 - but then in going through the line to check passports there are only two agents and hundreds of passengers. One guy is having an issue, and is with the agent for over 30 minutes, and in the meantime the other agent checks 20 people. She finally gets through, TWO HOURS later - she takes the express to the Liverpool street station - and she learns, no more tubes run after 12... No trains?! It took us a good 45min to get across town WITH the tube in service. Her option is cab (50pounds), or bus.. After bus.. She opts for bus and its packed like its rush hour - she befriends some other weary travelers in the same situation and together they find their way through the bus system. On the last bus the driver says he'll let them know when its their stop (she and her new friend Felix are at hotels just a block apart)... The driver does not tell them - but another couple getting off mentions Hounslow - which is what they want. They've passed the stop - ergh. So they share a cab to their hotels - the cabbie is very nice, helps Amy get in the hotel (the desk clerk was very reluctant to open the doors at 3am)... And the cabbie insists that she take his card, in case of emergency. But she won't need it - we just have a short tube ride to Heathrow tmw.... Famous last words.

So this morning, after Amy's nap, we have our English breakfast to sustain us for the day of travel HOME. And we head out. We need to be at the airport 3 hours early, so that means 9am. We get to the tube stop about 2 blocks away, and I had issue with my oyster card (it charged me twice) - so I needed to resolve that so I would have enough to get to Heathrow. He fixes the problem - and then tells me that there are no trains to Heathrow this morning. WHAT??? You're going to have to back up and say that again. You just heard me tell you I needed enough for Heathrow, you go through the process of fixing it and *then* you tell me no trains? There's been a power outage. The *only* reason we stayed here was because it was near a tube station and only 2 stops away from the airport. It was going to be so easy.

So how do we get to Heathrow? Oh, take the 203 bus, which is "this way" in some non-descript non-directions... So we walk, and 5 blocks down (past our hotel in the opposite direction) and keep asking along the way for the 203.

We find it - and literally, I could reach out and touch the back end of it as it pulled away. The next one comes in 20minutes. Its 9:00.

Amy still has the card from her driver last night, so we call there - it will be 12 pounds and they don't take cards. We don't have 12 pounds. We collectively scrape together all of our change and using 5 and 10 pence pieces, we find 12 pounds. We call him back and they'll be here in 5 minutes.... 5 minutes later we get a call. He asked, where are you exactly? We're at the bus stop. Still. At the bus stop. Its 9:25. We hear a honk and he's in a parking lot across the way.

We had considered taking the bus if it came first - but it doesn't stop at terminal 4 for international flights, so in addition to however many stops it made along the route, we'd then have to figure in the time it took us to find and traverse to terminal 4.

Its all good - all part of our grand adventure. What fun would it be if things went smoothly? As long as we make our flight - all is well. And besides, we hadn't had the chance to ride in a car on the wrong side of the street yet - and now we can check that off of our list.

We're at the airport - checked in - and just waiting to board. Hoping for a boring, uneventful rest of the day.

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