Outer Banks
August 10–12, 2011
After a big breakfast south of Chesapeake, we headed toward our motel at Kill Devil Hill. We then toured the Wright Brothers exhibits and walked the path of the first motored flight. We spent the afternoon on Manteo Island. I can't imagine that I didn't take any pictures there, but I've not run across any while compiling these pages. If I find some, they will be added here. I was again surprised to find that we were visiting another Civil War site. Union forces occupied the island, and so runaway slaves came there for protection. In the evening we attended a performance of The Lost Colony, which I had never seen before. All three of us agreed that it vastly exceeded our expectations.
On Thursday Torrey and I drove down the Outer Banks to Cape Hatteras, visiting lighthouses along the way. Joyce preferred to spend the afternoon on the beach. This was all new territory to me, and I had never seen the Hatteras lighthouse in person. By then they had moved it a few miles farther inland to protect it.
On Friday, August 12, we left the Outer Banks and headed to Rocky Mount. We found an interesting place to have lunch, and then Torrey and Joyce took me to the spacious and busy train station. It was restored to much of its early twentieth century glory from 1997 to 2000. The train trip back to Kannapolis concluded my Civil War and Outer Banks tour. Joyce and Torrey drove on back to South Boston to see the final two performances of Christopher's play before Joyce had to fly back to teach on Monday. I got home in time to do the last minute preparations for Mother's birthday party, which is also chronicled on this site.
It was a wonderful, enjoyable, and informative trip, combining what was for me a good balance of planning and serendipity. I kept several guide books on the floorboard under my feet and would read aloud relevant information of things we were about to see. I also had my iPad on my lap, and so could check maps for navigation and look up answers to any questions that we had. It was great to spend that amount of time with good friends from halfway across the country. Torrey was the first person I met when I got to SMU, and he roomed across the hall from me, so his is my friendship of longest duration post-Davidson.The trip turned out the be the last time I would see Joyce. She died from her heart condition the following July. Torrey and I hope to do some more traveling together in the next couple of years.