We woke up early on our second day to catch the sunrise. The beach was literally steps from our hotel. We were some of the only people crazy enough to get up that early in the cold. Unfortunately a few clouds prevented us from really seeing the sunrise crest...but we did see a few dolphins playing in the waves.
After breakfast we headed out to a few lighthouses. Bodie Island Lighthouse was my favorite of the three we saw. The sky was the perfect shade of blue and the clouds were picturesque.
Wouldn't you love to be a lighthouse keeper and wake up every morning to see this in your backyard.
Our next stop was at Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. We underestimated the drive time to this lighthouse and ended up missing church. Who knew that you could drive for over an hour on the Outer Banks...everything looks closer together than it really is. Cape Hatteras lighthouse is made of brick and is the tallest brick lighthouse in the United States. We learned that whale oil was used to light the lighthouses until the 1880s. We also learned that in 1999 this lighthouse was moved to its current location to protect it from the rising waters of the Atlantic.
We loved the drive along Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Parts of the drive were so narrow that we could see the ocean on one side of us and the sound on the other. Do you know how the snow blows across the roads back out West...imagine that with sand. It was magical.
The seashore was full of sand dunes. Development along the seashore is prohibited so it was just us and the sand. Sand dunes tend to be migratory and to prevent movement these fence like structures are placed in the dunes.
We didn't get a chance to go hang-gliding but Seth did pull out his kite again.
We couldn't help but imagine Captain Jack Sparrow wandering among the sand dunes. The Outer Banks is actually known for pirates and is often referred to as the Graveyard of the Atlantic. Ships tend to crash in this area because of the constant changes that hurricanes cause to the terrain. On our drive along the seashore we saw the remnants of one ship.
I would love to go back to Jockey Ridge in warmer weather to sled down the dunes. We did run down the dunes...technically we raced...Seth won but he has longer legs.
After Jockey Ridge we drove North to Currituck Beach Lighthouse.
After visiting the lighthouse we headed to a boardwalk trail in Corolla.
We were hoping to catch a glimpse of the wild horses that inhabit the Northern tip of the Outer Banks. But our car doesn't have 4-Wheel drive which meant we were unable to venture out onto the beach in search of them. We attempted to park and walk along the beach in search of the horses...but there were no horses to be seen. I found the image below online, which makes me wish even more that I would have seen them with my own eyes.
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| http://www.villagerealtyobx.com/OuterBanks/TheCorollaWildHorses/ |
