airplane

After a solid dose of colonial history, I drove south to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. From the stories my friends have told me, I was expecting the Outer Banks to be one charming little beach town after another, similar in some respects to Cape Cod. Nope. The town of Kitty Hawk was indistinguishable from any other suburban commercial zone in the middle of Anywhere except that the Atlantic Ocean was across the street. Kitchsy tourist shops and fast food joints were at every corner. There was a store that boasted the largest hammock in the world and proudly advertised itself with a billboard that read: No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problem! Even the houses were unsightly. They all looked like giant pre-fabs that came in only three designs, but the builders figured, "Hey, just place'em every other, paint'em pastel colors and no one will know the difference."


I came to Kitty Hawk to see where powered flight first began. The memorial site was simple, but informative and marked the start of the four powered flights with rock markers signaling where each flight terminated. There was also a large memorial on the top of Kill Devil Hill, the biggest of the sand dunes where the first gliders were launched. It's really too bad the Wright Brothers were probably Buckeye fans.


The Outer Banks reminded me of Key West only because of the endless number of bridges that are only two feet above the water and seem to drag on for miles. The wind, which drew the Wright Brothers to this location, was so strong at times I thought the car might get swept right in to the Atlantic. Fortunately the wind gave way to much worse weather.

As I was getting closer to Fayatteville, the radio stations were interrupted by an emergency broadcast. A announcer came on and said, "Be advised, there is a severe thunderstorm warning...uh, better make that a hurricane warning in effect until 6:30 in all coastal Carolina counties. Please stay away from glass, good luck!"

Just after the broadcast I drove through torrents of rain and 60 mph winds. Shortly thereafter I arrived in Fayatteville where I stopped for gas. Thank God that's all I stopped for. I knew I was in Fayatteville even before arriving because a friend texted me asking if I had found strip club row [ed.] yet, and every other billboard I passed advertised "We are bare and we don't care" and "Of course we're topless, why else would you come?" Obviously Fayatteville is the strip club capital of the world, or at least North Carolina.

Like before, all pictures can be found here.