Outer Banks, September 2015
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With Labor Day coming late in the month, and the start of Robert's school pegged to after Labor Day, we ended up with an extra week of summer break. What better way to spend it than at the Outer Banks; in our case, Corolla. Sarah found a hotel on the beach with a pool (actually 4 pools) so we were a little more flexible than the house renting crowd. We drove down Sunday night and were a little disappointed to see the red flag up at the beach -- it was too late to go in the ocean anyway. But the lazy river pool was nice. The next day was cloudy with a bit of rain off an on, but the red flag was down. We had an afternoon Monopoly game and then used our Fourth of July sparklers on the beach to celebrate one more week of summer! |
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Morning came early the next day (Tuesday): suspiciously close to the start of breakfast, the fire alarm went off. We trundled out of bed, down the stairs and outside to wait for the fire trucks, and then the all clear for what seemed to be a false alarm. The good news was that gave us an early start on the day and we headed down to Kill Devil Hill to check out the Wright Memorial. Robert managed to play the turkey vulture role in the park ranger's griping talk about the Wright brother's first flights. |
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Being the clever folks we are, we brought a glider with us to fly around the memorial.
But that was really the precursor — we did hang glider lessons at Jockey Ridge. It started with a waiver,
of course, then flight school (a little history of the flying wing design, and a little discussion of how it
works and how to control it), then ground school — a minute or two review on the ground under the glider.
Then off down the hill... |
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The most important thing to do is Flare when it's time to land. Sarah's is a text book, open palm, full extension flare (followed by an excellent landing). Here are some videos of some of our runs: Robert, Sarah, David. After a late lunch, we headed back to the hotel and beach and pools. The next day we drove back down to one of the little amusement parks for "trampoline thing," mini golf and go karts (which were really cool! — but no where near as cool as the hang gliding). |
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It was hot at the amusement park, so we jumped into the ocean when we got back that afternoon.
The weather had really taken a turn for the best and we had lots of fun in the water: snorkeling boogie boarding sit-on-top kayaking even kneel-on-top kayaking (a little bit) It's too bad for the adults that Robert's boat is really his size. |
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| Since the weather was so great, and expected to be so again the next day, we added a night to our stay. That allowed us a full day the beach with friends from "the moms group" who came down Wednesday night. Thursday was another glorious day on the beach. |
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| Our friends rented a larger sit-on-top and we rented a paddle board. And Sarah got to paddle the board up to the dolphin pod swimming by. It really was a perfect time at the beach. |
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Robert was stylin' in his snorkel gear on the paddle board. I got on it a couple time, most times with the result below (but I did manage to get more stable with a little more practice). After exhausting ourselves on the beach, we packed our beach toys away and jumped in the pool for a final, pre-dinner cool down. |
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| We packed up the next morning for the drive back to DC — with surprisingly little traffic issues. But before we crossed the state line, we stopped at the home of Gravedigger one of the monster trucks we saw a few years ago in Baltimore. |
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| Those few days flew by; lots of fun stuff to do, great weather, fantastic to hang out with friends. We're already plotting a return trip. |
Vacation notes:
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