"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." Albert Einstein (courtesy of Linda Bryant)

Nags Head Nirvana

Just returned from my 20-somethingth vacation in Nags Head and I never tire of it. A friend asked me about it and so I thought I'd share my observations/opinions in case others are considering an Outer Banks adventure.

As a Nashvillian, I grew up going to the Gulf, but my husband's family had purchased a house in Nags Head back in 1960, so of course that's where we started going as a family.
It's a looong drive from Nashville - about 700 miles - but now we only need to travel about 200 miles due east from Raleigh on Highway 64.
FYI: Raleigh and Norfolk both have good rates from Nashville on Southwest.

Driving east from Raleigh, one passes through the "inner banks," mostly small villages that have been farming and fishing/crabbing communities for decades. It's a scenic drive, going through some waterfowl preserves that run along the coast before reaching the sound. If you go this way, and if you are a history person, I would recommend a stop at Somerset Plantation - at one time the largest in NC. It has quite a reputation for its interpretation of African American slave life, as well as the economics of large-scale planting in the antebellum era.

To get to the Outer Banks from here, you cross the Alligator River onto Roanoke Island. Once on the island, a slight left turn off the highway puts you in Manteo, a lovely town on the Albemarle Sound (or it may be Pamlico Sound -- they come together somewhere right along here). Manteo is where Andy Griffith lives, and he could live pretty much anywhere. It was the site of the original Lost Colony (as I'm sure you know) and one of NC's several outdoor theater productions tells that story. It's fun to see.
Also, there's also a small aquarium here and a really great independent bookstore, plus a picturesque harbor with sunset cruises available, etc. (We took an early-evening sailboat ride a couple of years ago that turned out to be one of my favorite experiences.)

Cross one more bridge and you're in Nags Head, which used to be accesible only by boat (which I guess is true of all the Outer Banks). Nag's Head is a family-vacation sort of place with everything from the obligatory putt-putt to the highest sand dune on the east coast, which you can climb at Jockey's Ridge State Park. The First Flight/Wright Bros. Museum is just a couple of miles away in Kill Devil Hills. A few miles south is Bodie Island Lighthouse (can't climb, but it is in a beautiful setting between the ocean and sound, with boardwalks across the wetland grasses), and Coquina Beach, a scenic natural beach (open to the public for swimming etc.) with remains of a wrecked ship from early last century.
Our favorite places to eat include Tortuga's Lie on the beach road (small, quaint really good seafood), Mama Kwan's (Asian influenced, casual) and Sam and Omie's (a local hangout that has great soft-shell crab and fried vegetables and other regional dishes).

In case you're interested, the rental company we use is NagsHeadRealty.com. You can check out the website to see the available properties, prices, amenities, etc. They range from small historic cottages like ours (built in the teens) to modern manses with palladian windows and the like. There's a very specific type of cottage that is known as the Nags Head cottage, and it has a big wrap-around porch with overhanging roof, usually two stories or a story-and-a-half with a long rear ell, shingled in cedar shake. You can see several that are part of a historic district along Virginia Dare Trail (the beach road) between about the 12-14 mile markers.

To the north of Nags Head is Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills, Southern Shores, Corolla and Duck. There's another lighthouse in Corolla, which visitors can climb - it's quite a hoot - and also a hunting club founded by the railroad tycoons back around 1900 or so. Its pretty cool and they do give tours.
Duck is quite upscale, with fancy cottages and resorts -- and some nice shops.

The weather can be a little hard to predict on the banks. This week, we had two days of 95-degree weather, a rainly 68-degree day and then two perfectly sunny 78-80 degree days. The water is usually warmer later in the summer, but it was quite nice this week, as well.

That's my pitch for Nags Head. A lot of folks from Raleigh like to go further south to Hatteras and Ocracoke (more lighthouses) or further, to what is called the "Crystal Coast" - Emerald Isle, Atlantic Beach, Cape Lookout, etc. I'm sure those places are wonderful, too, but I haven't had the experience since we always go back to Nags Head.

If you're interested in seeing all of the the banks - about 200 miles or so - Highway 12 runs the length and requires two ferry rides. Lots of interesting small seaside towns and other sites to visit along the way.

The Not So Big Wedding

I am a procrastinator, including and to the extent of not putting my wedding pictures in an album for more than two decades. This deficit came into high relief a couple of summers ago when my daugther, the photographer, got married.
Again, I was somewhat tardy, but only weeks, -- well, maybe a very few months -- went by before I got to the photo-album stage and dutifully recorded this charming and well-thought-out ceremony in a by-god picture album. (By that I mean the kind you can hold and flip through, not the kind on-line.)
Now, more than a year later, with a hefty album that is only one-third full of my daughter's wedding photos, and, more recently, another third full of my new grandson's first Christmas, etc., I decided to put in my own wedding photos where they could be protected and admired.
There are 60-plus photos, snapshots, really, that were captured during my 1987 wedding to Tommy.
While I see us as much the same, intrinsically, it's hard to recognize the perky and determined couple walking down the aisle. Younger, thinner versions of ourselves, of course. But also an apparent lift in our step that says 'this is just the beginning of a wonderful, eventful life.' And so it has been, so far.
Moving on to the larger family shot, my mom, in an uncharacteristic tea-length dress, smiles knowingly. Pleasant, but exuding an of-the-world attitude, as if she can predict what's in store but still seems happy to see two people whom she loves beginning their life together.
Then my dad, standing in the background, quietly smiling. On the exterior, a jolly hail-fellow sort, he remained emotionally distant most of my life -- yet in so many other ways was a steadfast presence, always there to back me up. It will be another two decades before the smoking catches up with him. My dad, Ed, died of lung cancer in 2008.
But the hardest one to look at is little Kelsey. A heart-breaker at her core, in these photos she is 4 years old and beautifully outfitted in a fancy pink dress. Her swingy blonde bob exudes cheerfulness belied by her expression -- not unpleasant but not at ease, a wary child who learned or was simply born knowing to watch out for herself. Now she seems so happy watching out for own son, Silas, who is almost 9 months old, like she was practicing for motherhood all along.
These photos are a crystal ball in reverse -- showing us the people we were before we followed the trajectory that brought us where we are today.
Those of us still on this earth are mostly still together. And good things are happening. Just maybe not the ones we had in mind as we strode so purposefully down the aisle.

Moving Hillsborough in the Right Direction


Forty years. That's how long it took to get a really unfortunate line item out of NCDOT's budget and, finally, off the radar for dozens of interest groups engaged in the drama of the proposed Hillsborough Bypass.

The bypass was conceived in 1969 as a way to reduce traffic on Churton Street in Hillsborough's historic downtown. The solution devised was an asphalt gash in the Orange County countryside that would send four lanes of traffic hurdling across the scenic Eno River near St. Mary's Road and through the 252 bucolic acres at Ayr Mount, a ca. 1815 plantation landscaped with nature walks and hiking trails.

The road also would have disturbed the site of the Occonneechee Speedway, the only track remaining from NASCAR's 1949 inaugural season and one of the important, unique attractions of Orange County, an enclave for some of the state's most creative, intellectual and historically minded people.

Underlying some of the local angst must have been the threat of losing millions in state transportation dollars. By 2009, the bypass had morphed into a $45 million project that promised an infusion of cash and a significant, if temporary, spike in business for town merchants and restaurateurs, gas station operators and others.

Despite other transportation needs the county may currently have, the money designated for the bypass is being lost without the project, which was only recently put to rest by an overwhelming coalition of opposition involving residents, environmentalists, historic preservationists and government entities, including the Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization.

The political stakes were high, but the outcome will prove to be right one for the future of Hillsborough and Orange County.

The small, temporary reduction in traffic counts downtown - estimated at below 20 percent of overall traffic and only for a few years' time - would have done little good in contrast to the great harm the bypass posed to Hillsborough's character and charm as a destination for those who value unique people and places.

Trifles

So much ice and snow. There was just no excuse not to stay inside and wander into all the little nooks and crannies that never catch me as I rush through daily life. It was like a treasure hunt, with booty being a DVD I’d been searching for (it was right there in my bedroom all along), a ring I thought I’d lost, and books – so many books have I bought in a flurry of purpose and intent and then lost track of as the initial rush faded. Then there were tucked-away prints and photographs and post cards and other remants of things that I save because I want to remember something memorable. Tomorrow, I’ll wear my newfound ring, and watch the movie, and read my books. And what about the postcards? Maybe I'll give them a last look, toss them away and start a new collection of memories.