Nags Head to Myrtle Beach

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Left around 8:30 in the morning and headed South. I was surprised at all the duck hunting that takes place in this section of the country. The sand dune like beaches also amazed me. The beach banks are really high. It also came to my attention that surfing is king in this area of the country. In Mirlo Beach the sand is piled up like snow is piled up in Colorado. I bet the cats love this area. A lot of this area is dependent on tide somewhat. This is true for all coastal regions. There are huge wildlife preserves in this area. The fishing poles are mounted on the front of trucks. I talked to some locals and they mentioned people are surfcasting near Cape Hatteras lighthouse. So I decided to walk out there and talk to them about how they fish. The local suggested I deflate my tires to 20 psi and drive out there. I didn’t want to mess with reinflating the tires even though the local said there are numerous locations to inflate tires all over the area. The local said in this area of the country surfing is the best on the eastern coast. Even better than Florida because the waves are bigger. It has to do with the depth of the ocean near the shore.

I talked to an older retired gentlemen who was pretty passionate about his sport. I asked him a myriad of questions. He said you fish were the waves are smallest nearest the shore, because that indicates deepest water near the bank. He asked if I saw the porpoise out there. I said I did. He said the porpoise will scare the fish towards the bank. Where he catches them. He asked if I saw those ducks out there? I said I did and asked if that means there are fish there. He said no it doesn't mean that they are just fun to watch. I laughed. That was the funniest thing I heard on the trip so far. We also talked about how warm it has been. He said he heard on Regis and Kelly that you had to go to the northern extremes of Canada to find snow. It seemed funny to me that he watches Regis and Kelly. He went on to tell me about global warming. I told him I wrote a report on global warming in 1992 and that I think global warming is happening.

This area is extremely touristy. A lot of places are closed for the Winter season. This is good for me because I saved money on lodging expenses. Also noticed a lot of realty places in this tourist area. That seems to be common to all tourist areas. I purchased some chips and they were Cape Cod chips, which seemed odd to me. I was just in Cape Cod and they didn’t seem that popular in that area. I may have not noticed them as much, or it may be people are always thinking the grass is greener on the other side of the street. i.e. people who do not live in Cape Cod think the place is greater than it might be. Don’t get me wrong, as Cape Cod is a beautiful place, but I think it is human nature to always think someone has it better than you do. Wow where did that philosophy come from.

Appears to be lots of beach access, which is very cool too. I always root for the common person and that is nice to see common people having access to nice places like this.

I’ve noticed in the east in general there are lots of Indian named locations such as rivers as I saw some Indian named places in this region of the Country as well.

On the Ferry ride from Cape Hatteras to Cedar Island I talked to a lady originally from Centralia, which is about 20 miles from Carlyle. It’s amazing how small this world is. She went to the University of Illinois as well.

The ferry ride was 2 hrs. and 15 minutes, which really through my schedule off wack. I did make it to Myrtle Beach, where I found a Holiday Inn near the ocean and spent the night in the back of my truck listening to the waves hit the Beach. Myrtle Beach seemed like a small Vegas to me.

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