Blogtrek

The Outer Banks

This past weekend I made my trip to the Outer Banks. It was a surreal place. For one thing, the thin islands were a linear place. All the places were along essentially a straight place: Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills, Nags Head, Pea Island, Rodanthe, Avon, and Buxton. Everything is up and down Route 12. For another thing, it was warm. It was like a return to summer, with temperatures, both water and air, in the 70s. I swam a bit in the ocean in October. The vegetation was unlike what I usually see. It was flat, with sea oats and the like. We were part of a birding trip, Wings over Water. Therefore, we saw lots of birds, including hyperactive sanderlings moving back and forth on the surf hunting for food, herons and egrets foraging the water for something to eat, graceful pelicans in the air, and ducks of many varieties, including a hybrid duck. We lucked out on the weather: clear and warm every single day, with rain on the day before and the day after we came back. The beach piles up in huge dunes, including the monster Jockey's Ridge south of Kill Devil Hills, from which come kites and hang gliders. We saw it on a moonlit night, it looked really out of this world, like something from Chesley Bonestell. But it was Earth; we could tell for we saw the vague outline and eyes of a gray fox galloping along the ridge. The food was expensive but good. I would like to come back again, but I don't know if I will get as good weather as we had this past weekend.