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What a long day!

We left the beach house at 10:00 am, and didn’t get back until after 7:00 at night. It was a massive 185 mile trip. But we did get to see some pretty awesome scenery. We wanted to go to Ocracoke Island and see the light house. On the way there we stopped to see the other light houses.

This one is Bodie Lighthouse. Each of the stripes is 22 feet high.

Look closely at the picture below. We were stopped by construction vehicles on the road. Their job is to take sand off the highway. Look how close it gets to the road! At this point in the trip we had unbelievably beautiful views of the ocean on one side of the car and the sound on the other. Water, water everywhere! And not a house in sight. Other than the road we traveled on and the phone poles, it was just as God intended. Gorgeous!

This is the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. In the summer of 1999, as the waters of the Atlantic Ocean threatened to overtake the lighthouse, the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was moved from its original location to a safer inland spot! To me it was a little disappointing that you can no longer see the ocean from the lighthouse’s new location. But we definitely wouldn’t want the lighthouse to drop into the ocean one day!

And at our final destination for the day, we came upon the Okracoke Lighthouse. It had been a long day. It was now 3:00 in the afternoon and GB had lost his patience. He was extremely disappointed that none of the lighthouses were open for climbing. This is the downside to going to the beach in the off-season. GB did love the ferry ride over to Okracoke, but I have a separate post for that. 

This is a map of the Outer Banks. We were staying in Duck. So you can see what a long trip it was. Did anybody read ‘Nights in Rodanthe’ by Nicholas Sparks? I was so excited to travel through Rodanthe and see the beautiful little town.

Being a veteran mother, I recognized the need for a little boy to play and climb. The tiny little meltdown was a big clue. So after touring the Okracoke museum, I asked the curator if there was a playground around for my little boy, since he’d been cooped up in the car all day. Luckily on such a tiny island they did have ONE. It was the playground for the K-12 school. Visitors could use it when school was not in session. What a tiny school. Getting to the school, we got to travel through the village and really absorb some of the flavor of the place. Very quaint!

The whole island was like being in another time. It was so cute and picturesque. Only 700 people actually live there and the only way to get onto the island is by ferry.

Outside the Okracoke museum GB actually found his own climbing structure. But we still went to the playground.

This is GB sitting on a bench near the ferry loading area.