Cape Hatteras National Seashore

WED July 14

What a place! From the light house in the south to Kitty Hawk in the north, this is a heck of a place to vacation. But you have to remember that it is a tourist island and so it is full of places that are selling ladies swim suits at 1/2 off and lots of restaurants. And I played the tourist and went into a couple of shops but didn’t buy anything. If you are planning on visiting I recommend making Nags Head as your center, it is a proper-sized city with the amenities, and traveling out from there.

Why are there such different “basic” [?] demands in different parts of the country? I was eating breakfast in the trailer this morning and watching TV and there were 5 different companies advertising replacement vinyl windows with complete framing between 6:30 – 7:00 AM; when I buy a house I expect the windows not to need replacement.

Speaking of TV, when I checked into this campground I was asked if I was going to use TV and when I said yes I was charged an extra dollar. They then asked if I was going to use electricity and if I was going to run my AC, that yes was an additional $3.00 charge. But electricity was based on meter reading and the next morning I was refunded $1.20 on checkout; if I had left before the office opened and used more I wonder what they would have done since this was a “cash only” campground?

I drove to the Hatteras lighthouse and walked around there for a while. There are several lighthouses in this graveyard of ships area and they all had powerful lights and were painted differently so even during daylight sailors could know where they were.

The highlight of the day was a stop at the Wright Brothers National Memorial. I joined one verbal history of their development through gliders to the Wright Flyer and it was one of the best presentations I have ever heard at a National park. I wandered the area and also watched a video on an event they did a few years ago by recreating the gliders and flying them. And what I thought was the highlight of the highlight, and I went and told a Ranger so, was a kite flying event they did for all the children who wanted to join-in; kids don’t care about the mechanics of how the airplane was built or how long the first flight was, but they sure will remember flying a kite with a hundred other kids.