Bittersweet!

Well this post would have been titled just Sweet, had it not been for a certain law enforcement officer being a jerk. But I will not ruin the ending.

Thursday night Me, J, Y and DS had a planning session at their house. We weren’t sure if we wanted to go at all this weekend because the weateher forecast said it would rain on saturday and that it would really cold on sunday. These did not sound like ideal conditions to go camping, so we decided to rent a camping cabin which is a very rustic cabin and just chance the weather.  Our destination was the village of Frisco on Hatteras Island in the Outer Banks. Our planning session lasted long into the night with us making extensive lists of stuff we were going to take with us.

Friday, we got a late start becasue DS ‘s meeting ran late , but we finally started our adventure. On the way, we nearly ran out of gas b/d J kept taking exits that did not have gas stations, but we did make it into Frisco without too much more adventure. It was weird to drive on the Outer Banks in the dark and we had no idea what the view around us was really like.  Our camping cabin turned out to be very cool, it had a two rustic platform beds and a table and an air conditioner. The air conditioner which seemed like a luxury at first was actually a necessity in the humid sea air.  That night, Y and I went to bed while the boys stayed up smoking cigars on the porch.

Saturday morning , I was the first one to wake up and I decided to explore the campground. It was a beautiful morning with warm temperatures and a pleasant sea breeze. Right as I stepped out of the cabin I reaized we were only a few feet away from the Pamlico sound . The sound is just beautiful and teeming with life, I saw a cottonmouth(water moccasin) and all sorts of really cool birds. After breakfast we wandered around Hatteras Island and checked out the talled Lighthouse in America -Hatteras Lighthouse and wandered along the beach. The thing that impressed me about Hatteras Island was the fact that most of tha seashore was protected and undeveloped, which is very unusual for coasts in the east. On the beach, we saw plovers, sea cucumbers, tons of crabs, skate eggs , different types of sea anemones and a horse shoe crabs. We also ate a delicious lunch of She Crab soup and calamari and Y made us a special mexican beer cocktail.

Saturday afternoon we checked out the little villages on the island and went to the Pea Island Wildlife refuge. We saw different species of turtles and some river otters  and also some ospreys. That night we made a yummy camp dinner of steak and potatoes and chilled on our porch.

Sunday, the weather did indeed get really bad. We spent the morning exploring the southern end of Hatteras Island and then headed north to Kitty Hawk and Kill Devils Hills. At Kitty Hawk we checked out the the famous Wright Brothers memorial and saw the spot where they launched into flight for the first time. It was really neat to see  how scientific they were in constructing their glider and their flyer.

The weather was getting really bad now, so we just grabbed lunch at the Pier House restaurant of fresh seafood and Bloody Marys and headed back home. On the way….here comes the bitter part… we passed a cop who had pulled soemone over and J had to veer out into oncoming traffic to not run into him and we nearly ran into the oncoming car. But a few miles later the same cop pulled us over because we had not pulled into the other lane far enough and we were apparently “endangering the cops life” according to NC law. So J got a ticket for $ 36o  and our great trip had to end on a sour note.

Despite the ticket, I had a great beach weekend and it was fun to celebrate the end of my semester by a quick getaway.