Outer Banks, North Carolina

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In North Carolina we stayed at North River Campground which was nice enough but I thought we were lost a couple of times getting to it. The GPS took us on several narrow country roads. It ended up being a short drive to the Outer Banks once we got good directions, so all was good.

On our drive out to the Outer Banks our first stop was at the Wright Brothers monument in Kitty Hawk. There is a great museum and the park ranger gave an amazing presentation explaining the original plane and how it worked for that first flight. He emphasized that planes still operate using those same principles today. It has the hill that they tested their gliders from which was named Kill Devil Hill on which stands the tall granite monument.

We drove further south on highway 12 and stopped at Bodie Island Lighthouse. We then continued on down to Pea Island and the Rodanthe on Hatteras Island. All along highway 12 are tall sand dunes so you can’t see the ocean until you get somewhere that allows you to drive closer to the coast. There were lots of cars pulled off the road by the dunes so I guess people just hike over the dunes to the beaches. We had a great lunch at a place with a great view of the sound side of the island. After lunch we drove out to Rodanthe Pier and beach on the Atlantic Ocean side. There were lots of people enjoying the beach on the warm day. It was amazing to see this narrow strip of land out in the middle of the ocean that I had read about in several books. It is beautiful.

Since the tropical storm was staying away, we then headed down to Charleston, South Carolina with an overnight stop at Fayetteville, North Carolina.

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