The beauty of pulling your home around with you means you can change your plans at the last minute. I am a planner, so that doesn't always work for me. But it didn't take much for Mike to convince me to change up our week in Raleigh so we could hop on over to the Outer Banks for a few days (another Raleigh selling point!). Originally, we planned to be in Raleigh for a week, arriving and leaving on Saturdays. About a week and a half before we left, Mike made some phone calls and we found a camp ground in Rodanthe to spend a few days. So we left a day early and arrived in Raleigh on Friday. Then we had planned to head east on Thursday, but after a couple really good days in Raleigh and realizing we would definitely be back this fall, we made plans to head over a day earlier, on Wednesday. And so we did. And we extended our trip a day, coming home on Sunday.
While Mike was getting the camper set up, we had to get to the beach as soon as we could. And we were not disappointed with the view!
I am not a morning person typically, but I become much more of one on vacation. I know, it doesn't make sense. But I won't complain because you get to run on the beach with this take-your-breath-away view. God is so amazing and so creative and it looks like he just lit the sky on fire this morning, doesn't it?
One of my favorite sights in the whole, wide world: The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. I practically grew up in the shadow of this beauty.
And now I get to take my family up in it for the view. I am absolutely terrified of heights but this view is so worth my weak knees.
The other fun thing about the Outer Banks is getting to pick your own spot on the beach. :) We especially love heading down to Ocracoke Island where the waves are a little calmer and the beaches are even quieter.
The boys were jealous of our early morning runs, so they asked to join us one day. The girl was not so inclined to join us early.
On Friday we headed north, up towards Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills. On our way we stopped at the Bodie Island Lighthouse which wasn't open to the public when I was a kid. What another stunning beauty. While it is open to the public, they limit the amount of people who can go up at a time and we weren't able to wait around for the next opening. But we can plan ahead for the next trip!
The next place we visited was the Wright Brothers National Memorial. What a special way to wrap up the summer. We started it way back in May with a trip up to the Henry Ford Museum where their original bike shop and home are located. On Father's Day we found ourselves in their home town of Dayton, looking out over the field where they perfected flight. And now we got to see where their first manned flight (and so much more research and development) happened. Just after I snapped this picture of the kids, the skies opened up for a 20 minute downpour.
Then the rain stopped but we were still at 100% humidity in 90 degree temps. HOT. WET. But still, we made some fun memories!
I grew up staying in Buxton and we have also stayed in Hatteras a few times. I have never stayed in Rodanthe. We loved our camp ground (Camp Hatteras) and we made ourselves try new places to eat and visit that we hadn't tried before. One of our favorite restaurants this trip was The Mad Crabber and we are already dreaming about heading back there!
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