So I thought I’d give my thoughts and a quick review of The Outer Banks. First off, The Outer Banks provides gorgeous, and I mean beautiful sunrises over the ocean…
We stayed on Hatteras Island, off season. I’m not sure I’d love the area on a busy on-season summer week. It was wonderful this early part of September though. We did browse through the northern edge of OBX. It was more built up and commercial. Lots more people. We’re usually looking for less crowds, less development.
We stayed in the Avon area…the very southern end of it…like the 5th house or so from the end. No subdivision, just a row of houses on the beach where we were. (Note to self…it would be nice to rent a house where the people next door were not big smokers constantly going out to their deck to smoke their cigarettes and their stinky smoke snaking into our house all the time.) We rented through Hatteras Realty. They were fine. They did require money orders for the rent and deposit though. Pain in the butt. The other realty agencies we’ve used to rent house have all taken credit cards. If you rent here, and want a beach view, check the photos carefully. The house has to be really high in most areas to see over the dunes to the ocean. We can see the ocean, and the waves breaking, but not the actual beach…and our upper deck is one of the highest in this stretch of houses.
There are a lot of dunes here. It’s weird to drive down the coast highway for miles and miles and miles and not be able to see the ocean. Along with the dunes brings a long walk to across to the dunes to get the beach. And back. Do NOT forget the bottle opener at the house when you don’t have SuperGuy along with you to pop the bottle cap off the Corona!
Shelling was great here. I really enjoyed sitting at the beach at high tide and listening to the quiet tinkle of the shells when the highest waves would wash the tiny bits of shells back to the ocean. Almost sounded like a delicate wind chime.
We met friendly people and had the. best. hushpuppies. at The Fish House. (I think it was in Buxton or Frisco…south of here.) Very cold beer there too, I’m just saying.
We mostly ate in at night. Fresh fish from the market or that SuperGuy caught. Blue, waahoo (sp?), flounder, tuna. He did deep sea fishing, sound fishing, and fishing off the shore right in front of the house. He’s a very happy man about now.
Listen to Kate (Chronicles of a County Girl) when she says to wear shoes across the dunes or you just might end up with a puncture wound in your arch!! Ouch!! Salt water then stings. A. Lot.
OBX is a long drive from St. Louis. Like eighteen hours long. We just can’t do that in one day. We usually do Gulf Shores or Destin in one long day of driving, so that area is a bit easier on us travel time-wise. This takes two extra days of travel (one there, one back).
(I know, these are really random thoughts!) The beach is flat here and very nice to walk on. (Destin is very sloped!). Lots of dolphin watching here. I swear one of the dolphins thinks he’s Flipper! Must be a big kite surfing area because we saw it both on the sound side and the ocean side. Very fun to watch. Oh, and the sunsets over the sound are as gorgeous as the sunrises over the ocean.
We had fantastic weather so had the windows open the whole time listening to the surf. I love that. Though the “front” of the house was right on the main highway, so you did hear highway traffic.
Oh, and very nice to not have to fight through the jelly fish on the beach. Not sure if that’s true all the time, or not. But I really, really liked the whole no jelly fish dodging on beach walks. Pretty Lighthouses here, but couldn’t get any really cool no-parking-lot shots of them.
Didn’t make it over to Ocracoke island, which I regret, (unless we make it there this afternoon). All in all, a fabulous vacation. Oh, and I loved have wireless internet in the house to share our vacation with you! Well, that about sums up my random thoughts on The Outer Banks.
