The Outer Banks

We arrived at the Outer Banks by 10 and made our way toward Kitty Hawk, where Tim had bought stunt kites as a kid. We passed a couple of kite shops on the way, but Tim assured me that the best one was all the way in Kitty Hawk. Well, Kitty Hawk came and went and we found ourselves all the way in Duck, NC before we knew it. Using Lori, the faithful GPS, we got ourselves turned around on backroads for a good while, then Kitty Hawk bound once again. Well, as it turns out, the awesome kite store was one of the shops we had seen on our way. We parked and went into this store, that I think may have been pink on the outside with every kind of kite or windsock flying from the building. The store had TONS of stuff from clothing, to kites, to toys.. but we (I mean Tim) were only interested in kites. Tim got to talking with a kite lady and soon had his prized kite picked out. These kites are hand sewn and can do many tricks like spinning and flying low. I'm sure there are other things.. and Tim got a CD to learn them.

From the kite shop, we headed south to Nags Head for some lunch. We found a place recommended by the NC visitor guide - Sam and Omie's. We got a very interesting lady as a waitress. I'd say she was drunk, but it was 11 in the morning, so I'm thinking she's just a nutty local. She recommended the grilled fish cake sandwich, which we both got. It was very tasty and the fries were to die for. For dessert, we had homemade banana pudding. Neither of us had ever had homemade banana pudding before, and let me tell you, it was amazing. I can tell the difference in the boxed pudding. This stuff had a nicely whipped texture, vanilla wafers at the bottom, and chunks of banana throughout. After this scrumptious meal, we hit the road again.

Our next stop was the Bodie (pronounced body) Island Lighthouse. There are many beautiful lighthouses on the Outer Banks. We stood in the sun awhile and looked at it, toured the visitor's center, and picked up a couple of patches for Tim's patch collection. From the lighthouse, we went to the grocery store, picked up a few groceries, and hit the beach. We got there around 3 and set up our beach towels. There were fishermen spread along the beach, but the whole time I sat there, I didn't see one of them catch a fish. Tim pulled out his new kite and took it for it's inaugural flight with much success. No major crashes, and lots of loopty-loops. I finished the book I had been reading, The Ultimate Gift - a great book, I highly recommend it. We made PBJ's for dinner, enjoyed a drink as the sun set, and overall just relaxed while enjoying the waves and sun. Then we packed it all up and headed to our campsite.

We stayed at a place called Camp Woods, which is a RV park with a few tent sites. The woman there set us up with an awesome site right on the edge of a pond. I took full advantage of the nice bath house, then settled into the tent for some reading before bed. We had settled down into our sleeping bags, were talking, when we heard something lightly hitting the tent. Tim said, is that rain? I said, no way, it was a perfect day, not a cloud in the sky. Not 10 seconds later, the skies parted and it poured! I'm not talking a light rain, even a heavy rain, it was a HUGE rain with 35 mph winds. We quickly zipped up the tarp cover and bunkered down for the storm. We didn't make it half an hour before water was coming in the tent on Tim's side. He scootched over to my side a little more to avoid any dripping. We lay there as the winds ripped at the tent and the rain poured. We could heard loud things outside the tent, but had no idea what they were. Soon after, we had a branch come down on the tent. Luckily it wasn't big, but it scared us enough to run out of the tent into the car. Now, we're in the Fit, so sleeping in the car is out of the option. After not much deliberation, I started calling motels for late night rates. On the second try, I found a place for $50 and we left our tent to the storm.