Day 5 Visiting the Southern Outer Banks

We headed south about 30 miles on the island and stopped at the next lighthouse in Cape Hatteras. This is another beautiful area and a great and impressive lighthouse. The lighthouse was actually moved several years ago due to erosion. What a task that was to move something so tall and heavy.

 

The lighthouse keeper and his assistant lived in these houses.

We drove to the end of this island and took the ferry to the next island, Ocracoke where the last lighthouse sits.

 

A nice 40 minute ferry ride.

The Oceacoke Lighthouse. Not as tall as the others we saw, but still impressive.

 

The lighthouse keepers home.
We had lunch in Ocracoke. I had the best Shrimp and Grits I've ever had and David had a wonderful dish of Crab Mac n Cheese.
After shopping around the area for a while we headed back 16 miles to the end of Ocracoke Island to catch the ferry back home.

We stopped on the way to visit the wild ponies that live on the island. They used to run wild, and although they are still wild are fed and cared for by the NPS.

Of course we had to take a nice walk over to Ocracoke Beach. Lovely!!

We had dinner at Lisa's Pizzeria. Great Pizza. On the way home there was a beautiful sunset. 

Tomorrow we head for Virgina Beach.

Day 4 Visiting the North End of the Outer Banks

After breakfast we drove north to visit the most northern of the four lighthouses on the island. There was a bit more traffic and stores than where we are staying in Rodanthe. Of course we had to stop at Wal-Mart to buy a cheap vacuum cleaner. The ride was nice and we had a opportunity to see all around Corolla. We even stopped by Dairy Queen for a small blizzard.


The Currituck Beach Lighthouse was very picturesque against the blue sky, The weather was perfect and it was relaxing to get out of the car and walk around a bit. There was a little antique village with an old school house and church

Next stop, headed back south was in Kill Devil Hills (just south of Kitty Hawk) at the Wright Brothers Memorial. The Memorial is managed by the National Park Service so we were able to get in free with our senior pass.

The field where they did their first four flights was marked with the distances flown and there was a replica of the plane they few. It's amazing how far man has come in aviation.

Next stop was the Bodie Lighthouse near the Oregon Inlet. Another nice one.

 

Back home again. The kitties were all getting along just fine, Here's Nicky. He looks like he's caught in the act of doing something bad. Not so. He has been very good this trip.

Here Nicky and Bentley are just all tuckered out---from doing what, I don't know.

My little log cabin quilt. It measures about 15" wide, just the right size for the motorhome wall.

More tomorrow.

Day 3 Arrival at Hatteras National Seashore

We rented a car in Kill Devil Hills and arrived at the KOA campground just south of Rodanthe. It is at the 40 mile marker down the island. What a large, nice campground.  Lots of large motor homes, smaller ones, tent campers, and many little cabins and apartments right at the campground. Lots of amenities as well. We are right on the beach and the sound is right across the street.

 It was quite a drive to get here. We are staying about 60 miles down the island that is about 93 miles long. That way we can travel in either direction and get back home without having to travel the whole length of the island.

 

 

The weather here is quite nice with lots of breeze and no rain. The kitties are having a great time watching all the people and doggies walking by. There are lots of people flying kites much to Bentley's amazement. He can't figure our what kind of huge bird that is flying overhead. The kitties sat out in their playpen and drew lots of attention from other campers.  I guess they have never seen such spoiled kitties.

 

After we settled in we drove a few blocks down to a restaurant for dinner. We had skipped lunch and were really hungry. What's for dinner? Why seafood of course.

We had a great seafood chowder with clams, shrimp, red peppers and potatoes. YUM!

 

 

I had fried shrimp (and they were huge), FF and coleslaw. That more than made up for our skipped lunch.

 

David has the daily special fish fry with FF and coleslaw. Excellent and fresh seafood.

We walked outside for a look at the sound. Very enjoyable.

Nice restaurant and nice views. Now back to the campground for night of rest and reading.

 

 

 

Day 2 Another Day of Fun

One of the reasons we stayed in Blacksburg was to be able to stop by Mary Jo's Cloth Store in Gastonia, NC the next morning. I've heard lots of quilters go there because of the great selection of fabric and I've always wanted to check it out, but never have. I really wanted to look for some silk fabrics to use in my applique. It's just too hard to order silk on line, because you really need to see, touch and feel it.

Well, people were right about the quantity of fabric. It is a huge store with lots of quilt fabric, bridal fabrics, upholstery and drapery fabric. They had lots of blenders by different manufacturers, but did not seem to have any collections and absolutely NO MODA fabric. They did have Choice fabric, Blank and a good bit of novelty fabrics. The picture below is some of their fabric with owls in it, Quite a large selection for just owl.


It was nice to stop and check it out--Been there Done that. Their selection of silks was not what I was looking for, but I did find a couple of remnants that are usable.

We stayed the night at the campground in the State Fairgrounds in Raleigh, NC. It was bare, but they had full hookups and it was almost empty. It was a nice place to stay and we would definitely stay there again if we needed a place in the area.

Tomorrow we are headed to the Outer Banks.

On The Road Again Day 1

Well, I have had one rough time writing on my Blog this time. Although I could pull it up and give it a title it would not type anything else and my mouse wouldn't work. After emailing Blogger help, it turned out I needed a more updated version of Internet Explorer. So after getting all of that resolved I'm able to post.

Our trip actually started on Wednesday the 11--yes that's 9/11 and here's my blog post for that day.
It's time to get on the road again. Our plans are to head over to the Outer Banks, up to Virginia Beach, Intercourse, PA, then to Littleton, Ma (outside of Boston) and up to Oquossoc, Maine to spend some time at the camp. Not a super long trip, but time to get away in the motor home with the kitties and relax a bit.

Our start, as usual was a series of mishaps. First, on the list was to give Finnegan his ACE medication before we left home and give it time to kick in before we left. He gets car sick and is a Nervous Nelly about everything out of the ordinary. It would be nice to take a trip without him barfing his breakfast and drooling and being miserable. Today, he was really great about taking his pill and swallowing it down so that I could start my list of errands.

I had to run over to Chattanooga Quilts to drop off a quilt for a customer.Then I needed to drive to Wal-Mart to pick up a couple of power strips for David and a few other items. Next I needed to go to the Bernina dealer to drop my Bernina for a good cleaning since I would be out of town and not need it for a few weeks.

When I arrived home Finnegan very relaxed and out on the back porch . YEAH!!!!!!
It should be an easy time gathering all the kitties and putting them in the motor home this time. Usually it's like the Keystone Kops with us trying to gather them up as them run around the house, with us running behind chasing them as they run behind the furniture, under the bed and upstairs. By the time we leave, all the furniture is pulled away from the wall in order to get at them and the house looks like we were burglarized. We have now learned to close all the doors in order to coral them and this time we even locked them out on the back porch until we were ready to load them up. The exception is Bentley who follows us around, lays down in front of the doors so that we won't forget to take him. He does love to travel.

When I got home, I realized the power strips I purchased were not in the bag the lady at Wal-Mart handed me. GREAT, we'd have to swing by Wal-Mart on our way out of town. We gathered the kitties, headed down the road, went to Wal-Mart, retrieved the power strips and headed up I-75. A relatively nice start (considering) to our trip. Miles down the road I asked David if he had loaded my featherweight sewing machine in the trunk.====UGGHHHHHH  NO....Oh no, I have plans to sew and I have to have a sewing machine. Was it worth it to turn around and so all the way back home? We decided to check Wal-Mart for a really cheap machine. Yes, they had a $79 Brother. In retrospect, we should have turned around and gone back, but we already had a late start, so I bought the Brother and away we went. Several miles further down the road we realized we had not loaded the vacuum cleaner or the big box of coffee we had bought for the trip. They were sitting next to my sewing machine. We'll just have to worry about that later.

Everything was great on the road in spite of our start, Finnegan did very, very well. This was the most relaxed we've ever seen him as you can see below.


Bentley is trying to console him and Nicky spent a lot of time riding in my lap.

I brought along a couple of books to read on our trio. One is "The Union Quilters" by Jennifer Chiaverini which Madonna gave me for my birthday. I've been saving it for my trip and I can't wait ti read it.

 

Our first stop is in Blacksburg, SC just over the NC state line. The campground is small, quiet and restful EXCEPT for the siren that went off during the night that would wake the dead. It lasted for more than 5 minutes, sounding over and over. It sounded like a warning for a nuclear disaster. Evidently it is an emergency siren system for the volunteer fire dept. Gee, don't they just have a phone call list like everyone else? That siren wakes anyone within 25 miles.

Oh well, just another fun day on our trip. We are having homemade English muffins for breakfast  that David made at home to bring with us.  YUM!!!!

More....later


 

Emma at the Botanical Gardens

Emma really enjoyed her visit to the gardens--like the big frog at the fountain.
Turn the volume down--my voice is irritating!!!!!!!!!!!!

A Visit with Najla, Ryan and Emma

We spent a couple of days visiting Ryan, Najla and Emma in Atlanta. Ryan had training there for a few days and we has some time to spend with them. Thursday we went to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens with N & E. The gardens were just beautiful and much nicer than I had expected. The only problem was the 93 degree temperature. You can see, Emma made the best of it.

 

 

Friday, Ryan was finished with management training and we all went to the Georgia Aquarium which was fantastic. Emma really had a good time taking it all in. There was just so much for a little girl to see.

 

 

What a sweetie pie!!!!