We left MB and settled in for the 5 hour drive up to the Cedar Island Ferry to catch our 2 hour ride to Ocracoke Island. The boys decided midday blankets were in order. Ry just needed her tunes.
The best part of the day was when we missed our ferry by 7 minutes and then got to wait around for 3 more hours until the next ferry! Yippee! At least there was cool stuff to do and we had plenty of food with us. Oh wait, neither of those things are true.
By the time we were actually aboard the ferry, the kids were bouncing off the walls, but thought it was beyond crazy that we let them climb around their carseats while we were in motion (on the boat -- not actually driving).
I was NOT loving the Outer Banks at this point, but I forgave them when we pulled into the harbor and saw this:
Yep. It's kind of gorgeous there. Plus the locals have their own dialect that goes back a million years or something. Also, those last two shots are from the balcony of our hotel. Pretty sweet view, eh?
The next day we rented bikes like the tourists we were and set off for a ride around the island. Which was a great plan except for the bugs, and the heat, and the small children who couldn't quite keep up with the adults and had to keep switching off a ride in the trailer with pedaling until they were "out of energy", to quote Keaton.
Still, it really was fun (mostly -- can you tell how Keaton looks like he's going to pass out with excitement? or is that heat stroke?), and we rewarded our hard work with ice cream at 10:30 am. Because that's legal on vacation.
After ice cream we stopped by the Ocracoke Lighthouse (because that's what tourists do)...
...and then we looked up, because there really isn't anything else to do inside a lighthouse that you can't climb. Lame.3 1/2 minutes later we headed back towards the tiny town, where we stopped to buy a kite so as to maximize our "Outer Bank-iness" once we got up towards Kitty Hawk.
(Spoiler alert! We didn't have to wait that long to use it.)
We hopped back into the cars to wait for the ferry ride off the island (thankfully this one was a much shorter trip with only a 20 minute wait). Once we got lined up, I hopped back out of the car to see what I could see on the other side of the sand dune...
This was the side we were parked on (duh -- you can tell by the cars).
...and THIS was the view on the other side. It was like a postcard. Someday I'll frame some of these pictures when I get around to actually ordering prints again.Anyway, we took our quick ferry ride from Ocracoke and headed up Highway 12, which runs the length of the Outer Banks. It was an interesting drive up until all the traffic came to a dead stop, at which point we made proverbial "Highway 12 traffic jam lemonade" by breaking in our kite on the side of the road.
I may have said this already somewhere in another post, but I was lying that time. THIS /\/\/\ is (probably) my favorite photo of the whole trip. Love it.
Nana and #1 and #2 headed up the dune to look out at the ocean. It was purdy up thar.
After about an hour we got moving again and eventually made it up to Kill Devil Hills. We ate a gross and overpriced seafood dinner and once we escaped the restaurant we headed down to compare N.C. beaches to S.C. beaches. They are colder. Also, windier.
Still, we managed to have a fun evening. I liked the part where Boone and I told the kids not to get wet, because it was a little bit chilly. Let's see how well they minded us, shall we?
Rylan, good job. Way to play only in the sand.
Keaton, you too. (Huh?)
Boone and Branik, nicely done. What? You two would like to fly the kite again? By all means!
Awesome, we are several minutes into our evening beach excursion and everyone is still dry! Huzzah!
Oops. Bad mommy...
...and incontinent Big Poppy:)
We opened the floodgates and you can guess where this led. If you can't, well, you're dumb.
See the bottom of the shorts? Just slightly wet, no biggie.
Uh oh -- Keaton is now shirtless and thinking about losing the pants. At least Nana is there to keep the kids in line, right?
Can you see why we wanted them dry? Look how miserable they are in the evening waves. Miserable I say!
So yeah, we had fun. Watched a few passes by the pelicans, splashed around, flew the kite, and headed back to our rooms. And that's where the night got REALLY fun.
(Holy smokes, this is the longest post of all time and I'm about to start a story, after which I will continue with more photos. You may want to take a potty break, grab a snack, whatever floats your boat, because I can tell stories FOR. EVER. Boone loves this about me.)
Once upon a time, a family booked two adjoining rooms at a well reviewed ocean front hotel in Kill Devil Hills, N.C. After an evening of frolicking on the beach, the family headed back to the rooms to change clothes and put the kids to bed. The daddy stayed with the kids until they were asleep in their room, and then set up the baby monitor so all the grown ups could hear the kids next door while they visited. He even went over twice to make sure everyone was sleeping soundly.
When the grown ups had stuffed themselves with dessert and decided that they too were ready for bed, the mommy and daddy said goodnight to the grandparents and headed back to their room. The daddy got the middle child up to take him potty one last time, and while he was standing at the toilet the mommy noticed something on his shoulder. Upon closer inspection, she realized it was a tick.
A LIVE TICK.
The mommy freaked out, flicked the tick off the boy, and popped it under a wad of toilet paper. Horrified, she and the daddy stripped the middle child down to make sure there weren't any other visitors on his body. Once he was determined to be all clear, the mommy and daddy dressed him again and walked back to the bed he had been sharing with his big sister. They turned on the lamp, peeled back the covers, and found the bed crawling with ticks. More than 20 of them under the pillows, down in the covers, and all over the wall. They also found blood splatters in the bed where the children had rolled over/scratched at the ticks and popped them. Yum!
The mommy and daddy threw all the blankets on the floor, grabbed the two other sleeping children and stripped them down. All 3 had multiple bites on their faces and arms, but had no ticks attached to their bodies. While the daddy re-dressed the children, the mommy marched down to the front desk to report the room conditions.
**Side note: this was 11:00 pm on a Friday night in the Outer Banks. There were not vacancies to be had within 20 miles, and this was the best rated place anyway. We had nowhere else to go or I would have left.**
The hotel manager was appropriately horrified and offered the mommy the one remaining room in the hotel, which was on the top floor. The mommy took the key and went up to check it out, stripping all the bedding off first and scouring the room for bugs of any kind. She didn't find any ticks, but the room smelled like a wet dog. Gag me.
The mommy went back down to the tick room where the daddy and the grandparents were frantically trying to pack up an entire hotel room and keep 3 exhausted kids from losing it. They shuttled the sleepy children and a whole luggage cart of crap up to the wet dog room, where they put the kids back to bed and tried not to go insane worrying about ticks all night. The daddy (who was normally very rational and non-reactive) even flipped the lights on and tore the sheets off the beds at 2:00 in the morning to make sure we were alone. (We were.)
The next morning, the unrested and disgusted mommy went back to the front desk, asked for the manager, said "Thanks for the upgraded room, but you better also give me my money back because my kids have tick bites all over their faces", got her money back, and beat it the h@$# out of there.
The end.
I cannot describe the disgust and the guilt from this experience. It was easily the low point of the trip. To be fair, the hotel managers couldn't have done anything more to make it right, besides not having ticks in their rooms, I mean. That would have been a better way to go about hosting people, I think.
We tried to forget about the awful night and go on with our day, so we went to Jockey's Ridge State Park to see some massive sand dunes. From the top, you can see the ocean and the sound at the same time. It's pretty cool, but quite a hike.
In fact, it was SUCH a hike that Rylan and Keaton decided to stop and draw us a map so we could find our way back to the car. Super helpful in sand.
Once we got to the top, I started with the kite ( it's sort of relaxing, to tell the truth) and Ray got to work digging a hole in the sand. Because that's what people with Y chromosomes do when they find themselves near sand. THEY MUST DIG. Branik just sat for awhile because he was so tired.
But then he realized what Big Poppy was doing and literally jumped in to help.
The kids had a fun time up there, and it was worth the hike for the views. We went back to the beach one more time and Branik promptly put himself down for a nap.
We stayed long enough to bury the kids and splash off afterwards, and closed the book on the beach section of our vacation.
We had a fantastic time (minus the whole tick thing) and enjoyed exploring the Carolinas. Those beaches are the best around, and I know it is something we'll miss a lot when we leave the area. Big thanks to Boone's parents for all their help, and big thanks to me for planning an awesome vacation (minus the whole tick thing). I'm very welcome.
