Getting Out-er Banks

After being stuck indoors for months this winter, Brian and I were both feeling a little antsy to get out of the house and see something new.  There's no shortage of places on the East Coast we are have on our list of places to visit, so we opted to take a short-ish drive to North Carolina's Outer Banks.

Besides the miles of beautiful beaches, the area is most famous for being the site of the first flight.

The Wright brothers picked the Outer Banks because of its ideal conditions; it has a nearly constant wind and, maybe most importantly, the sandy ground would provide a soft landing.  This was an important consideration for them given that anything could happen.

The grounds of the first flight contain a memorial to the Wright Brothers, along with and information center with the history of flight and a life sized reproduction of the aircraft used by the Wright brothers.

It's like we're there.

The memorial was on top of a large hill, but it was worth it for the amazing views of the shoreline below.

After we got our fill over Orville and Wilbur trivia, we decided to explore the coastline further.  We didn't have a set agenda, we just set out on the highway to see what was out there.  Just so you know, there's a lot of sand.  It felt like we were driving in the desert even though the ocean was on either side of us.

We decided to stop at Cape Hatteras where we saw one of the famous lighthouses in the area.  Normally, you can climb the lighthouse (all 248 of them!), but it wasn't yet open for the season when we were visiting so we just had to enjoy it from the outside.

It is nicknamed the Barber Pole for obvious reasons

Quintessential East Coast

We went down by the water, hoping we could walk in the ocean for a while, but we quickly gave that idea up when we realize it was freezing.

We saw a lot in our first day, but we had other, bigger things to do while in the Outer Banks.  Which I'll share next!

What do you do when you have cabin fever?