OBX

We finally made a quick, exploratory trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina last month (or "OBX," as the locals call it).

For those who don't know, the Outer Banks are a grouping of very narrow barrier islands that stretch out into the Atlantic Ocean and run 200 miles along the entire length of North Carolina's coastline and up into the far southern end of the Virginia coastline.

For our nautically-minded readers, the Outer Banks are also known as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic," because there have been so many, many shipwrecks there over the last several hundred years on the shallow shoals during storms and in battles.  Even Blackbeard's pirate ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, ran aground on a sandbar near Beaufort, North Carolina in 1718.

We unknowingly planned our trip for the same weekend that Subtropical Storm Ana was headed for the South and North Carolina coasts (the first of the 2015 hurricane season).  Had our hotel rooms been refundable, we might have picked another weekend, but since they weren't, we threw caution to the wind (pun intended) and launched forth, figuring a tropical storm would just add to the adventure.

It was a soggy Friday evening slog from Northern Virginia to the beach.  Once we got off I-95 and were headed down the peninsula, the rain and winds were pretty terrifying exciting!  Yes, some big weather system was definitely coming.  We collapsed in our oceanfront room on the top floor of the hotel in Virginia Beach just before midnight and listened to the rain batter the windows much of the night.

We woke up the next day and could see that we would have had a spectacular view of the entire stretch of beach off our hotel patio, except the fog that had settled in overnight seemed determined to stay put for the day.  Bummer!

We took a long stroll on the boardwalk and checked out the sights and scenes of Virginia Beach, but because we were anxious to get to the Outer Banks and check into our hotel in Nag's Head before the storm really hit, we headed south in the late morning, promising ourselves we'd explore Virginia Beach more another day.

Much to our surprise, instead of getting worse as we headed south, the weather actually got nicer, and we ended up having spectacular weather for the rest of the weekend.  (Subtropical Storm Ana made landfall in South Carolina and worked its way up the North Carolina coast shortly after we departed--what luck!)

The first planned stop on our Outer Banks itinerary was to stop at the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills, just south of Kitty Hawk.  This is where, on December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright succeeded in making the first human flight, which measured 120 feet and lasted 12 seconds!  There is a monument erected on top of Kill Devil Hill that marks the site of the hundreds of glider flights the brothers took to learn about flight and prepare them for their first powered flight, which took place on the field below.

After checking into our hotel in Nag's Head, we headed out to the beach behind our hotel and plopped ourselves in the warm sand and sunshine for several hours, just taking it all in . . . gorgeous, peaceful, sunny and mild.  There were lots of shore birds, including brown pelicans, that kept flying back and forth along the beach.

Among the highlights of our exploration of the Outer Banks were our trips to see the iconic lighthouses. Bodie Island Lighthouse has been around since 1872, helping to keep sailors and ship captains safe as they navigated the shallow shoals and inlets nearby.

The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was built in 1870 and is just over 200 feet tall, making it the tallest brick lighthouse in the world.

We also went to the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site on Roanoke Island, which is where, in 1587 (30 years before the Pilgrims!) Sir Walter Raleigh established the first "permanent" British settlement in American.  This is known as the "Lost Colony" because some members of their party returned to England for more supplies, and when they returned years later, the Fort they had set up was plundered and the people who remained behind were gone.  There are several theories about what happened to them, including that they went to live with the natives on Croatoan Island to the south, but no one knows for certain.

Stone erected in memory of The Lost Colony

The Oregon Coast still has our hearts, but the North Carolina Outer Banks are a close second as far as beaches go.  Can't wait until the next chance we get to do more exploring out there!