Our travel day from Williamsburg, VA to the Outer Banks of North Carolina was a relatively short travel time, so we stopped at Virginia Beach, VA for the afternoon. We pedaled our bikes on the 3-mile boardwalk, up and back, stopping for lunch at a waterfront restaurant.
It was kind of a grayish day, but there was a lot to see, and we still had fun.
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| King Neptune |
There were tons and tons of beach/ocean-themed seasonal light displays in the sand and along the boardwalk. We would've loved to stay and see them after dark, but we had to get to the Outer Banks. After dark they close the boardwalk to pedestrians, and you pay a fee to drive your car down the boardwalk and see the lights.
You can check out a few photos of them with this link, if you'd like. They do look pretty cool.
Holiday Lights on Virginia Beach
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| This scary-looking place was just a block off of the boardwalk |
I was pretty excited about our next destination because of its location. The campground was called OBX Campground and was located in Kill Devil Hills, NC. The letters OBX are short for “Outer Banks” which is a chain
of barrier islands located off the coast of North Carolina. Kill Devil Hills, is right between Kitty Hawk and Nags Head.
I was also intrigued by the strange name "Kill Devil Hills". As per usual, there are different stories as to the origin of the name, but the most popular one is that the town was named after a kind of rum with enough potency to "kill the devil".
If you search for "kill devil rum" online, you'll see that you can indeed buy different flavors of it from Outer Banks Distilling. According to the Outer Banks Distilling website, rum was born in the Caribbean at least as far back as the 1650's, and it was often referred to as "kill-devil".
OBX Campground turned out to be a very peaceful, wide open place right on the Albemarle Sound; and it was a good location to explore fun stuff in the area.
Here are some shots from the campground:
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| On our first morning in the campground we were treated to a lovely sunrise on Albemarle Sound! |
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| There's the Beast on the right, lurking in the mist |
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| It's not every campground that we get a "view" from inside the Beast, but we love it when we do! |
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| Viewing the sunset from Jockey's Ridge State Park (in Nags Head) |
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| This view is looking the opposite direction (from the sunset at Jockey's Ridge) at the Atlantic Ocean |
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| The last of the sunset from Jockey's Ridge State Park over Albemarle Sound |
Wild Horses!
We took a tour with Corolla Wild Horse Tours and rode in the back of an outfitted pick-up truck to see these wild horses on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It was a very fun experience!
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| This is a 5-month old suckling from his mama |
These horses are Colonial Spanish Mustangs. How they’ve come to live on the Outer Banks is a bit of a mystery, but many local experts believe the horses were washed ashore by Spanish or English shipwrecks in the 1500s.
Since 1989 the horses have been monitored and looked after by the Corolla Wild Horse Fund, a group of dedicated volunteers and trained animal specialists. The CWHF’s mission, according to their website is:
To protect, conserve, and responsibly manage the herd of wild Colonial Spanish Mustangs roaming freely on the northernmost Currituck Outer Banks, and to promote the continued preservation of this land as a permanent sanctuary for horses designated as the State Horse and defined as a cultural treasure by the state of North Carolina.
(This would be how our tour guide knew that the colt was five months old.)
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| The sign on this house reads:"Horse Inn Around" |
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| Heading back, full speed ahead! |
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| After the wild horses tour we would've had lunch here, but they didn't appear to be open |
After lunch we toured the Currituck Beach Lighthouse. It had been getting windy at the end of the wild horse tour, but now the wind was really whipping up!
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At the top of the lighthouse with 40 mph winds! |
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| This is right outside the lighthouse door - which is as far as I would venture in this wind |
Marty walked the full circle around the lighthouse while I waited in the doorway. I honestly feared my sunglasses would fly off of my head; and if I took them off I wouldn't be able to see. I considered holding onto them with one hand and holding the rail with the other, but it really seemed like a 2-hands-on-the-rail adventure!
When we got back down to the bottom of the lighthouse we learned that they had just closed it due to the high winds!
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| From atop the lighthouse |
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| Currituck Beach Lighthouse |
After the lighthouse tour we stopped to take photos of the wind - or rather, the effects of the wind.
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| Hurricane Zeta (from the Gulf Coast) brought strong winds to North Carolina's Outer Banks |
The Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills, NC was inspirational!
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| Wilbur & Orville Wright |
Wilbur and Orville Wright grew up near Dayton, Ohio – so why Kitty Hawk?
When the Wright brothers were looking for a place to conduct their flying experiments, they had three criteria: wind, sand, and isolation, all of which could be found in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. After four years of scientific experimentation, they achieved the first successful airplane flights on December 17, 1903.
Wilbur and Orville did two different types of experiments in North Carolina: gliding and powered flying. Their gliders took off from the Kill Devil Hills, the sand dunes in the area at the time, including Big Hill where the Wright Brothers Monument stands today. Their powered flights, the first flights, took off from the flat ground outside their camp.
Although the Wright Brothers National Memorial is in the town of Kill Devil Hills, Wilbur and Orville would have referred to the location of their experiments as Kitty Hawk, the closest town in 1903. Kill Devil Hills didn't become an incorporated town until fifty years after the first flight.
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| The Wright Brothers Monument on Big Hill |
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| It was the week before the 2020 presidential election |
