Other things we discovered while there...

We didn't spend all of our time just lying around on the beach while we visited the Outer Banks, even though Pam probably could have just used the whole time walking along the ocean, listening to the surf and watching the birds.  And, in the spirit of fairness, I could have spent lots more time on the golf courses there.  We actually got out and drove around to see what all was there.  I read a review of the area from someone who went there and said there was nothing to do.  Now I know that wasn't true -- I suspect that person just never went out and looked.

One one afternoon, we drove around looking for lighthouses.  I figured since we were near the ocean, and this was, after all the graveyard of the Atlantic, there had to be lighthouses, even if they were not still working or were automated like most of the rest of them around the country.  We were successful in finding several.

 The Bodie lighthouse(right), a horizontally striped one,  was located south of Nag's Head.  We stopped here for a short time, and walked around the grounds.  And even though it doesn't look like it in the picture, just to the right of the scene, there was a severe storm churning out at sea and the winds and rain were making their way toward us.  The rangers closed the lighthouse because the storm appeared to be gaining strength as it came up north, toward the coast.  As it turned out, the whole thing changed course and went back out to sea.  Pranked us.

The other one what we saw, the Currituck Beach Lighthouse (below-right) was pretty cool.  There was a whole village there that has been preserved over the years.  The Currituck area was a private home for one of the very wealthy people of the time.  The whole island area was his private retreat.  At 162' feet tall, the lighthouse's First Order Fresnel light, (the largest size available for American lighthouses), can be seen for 18 nautical miles as the light rotates in 20 second increments.  

This lighthouse stands out for its distinctive red exterior. This design was intentional, to set the Currituck Lighthouse apart from its Outer Banks neighbors.  After completion, the lighthouse was left unpainted, allowing visitors to marvel at the sheer number of bricks involved in its construction.  

The mansion (shown below) was built by Edward Collings Knight Jr. for his wife Marie Louise.  They shared a passion for hunting waterfowl. But in those days, Mrs. Knight wasn’t welcomed in the all-male hunt clubs. Mr. Knight’s answer was to build a 21,000-square-foot “mansion by the sea” just for his bride.  With its bold yellow paint, copper roof and mahogany doors, the Whalehead invites you to explore a fascinating period in Outer Banks history. Nearly every inch of the home has been carefully restored to the way it looked when Edward Collins Knight Jr. and his wife, Marie Louise, first opened the doors as a lavish hunting retreat in 1925.

We did not tour the mansion, but one thing I was told was that the copper roof was used to draw heat and help cool the place.  It also would allow rain water to flow unimpeded into collecting tanks  as that was their source of water for some cooling, household drinking and other requirements.  Evidently, Knight was very much into conservation and the ecology.  I was told that the center chimney was not really a means of letting smoke out of the building.  Rather, it served as a means of letting cool fresh air into the structure as it was drawn in by the flow created through the lower story windows.  There was no air conditioning back then, and the mansions still is not retrofitted for A/C.

Whether it was marveling at the amount of work required to build the Currituck lighthouse, one brick at a time, and my losing count after about ten rounds of bricklaying, or trying to figure out the aerodynamic flow of air and heat through the Knight's mansion, I came away convinced that there were some pretty amazing and industrious people in this country in the old days.With crude tools and methods, lots of sweat and muscle, and NO computers to fall back on, they built this country and made it a truly GREAT place.

Whoever wrote the bad review of the OBX must not have made their way over here.

Men, great and small, must act like the lighthouse; they must shine day and night for the goodness of everyone.  They must take their light, no matter how bright, and reach out into the darkness in search of those who need help.
 Hooah

What a strange place for a state highway...

I have to admit...this was our first trip to the Outer Banks and we really didn't know where to go and what were the fun things to do.  So we thumbed through a AAA tour book and came up with some things.  We also asked some people who had gone there before what they enjoyed and what they would pass on if they were to go again.

One of the attractions that came up several times in conversations with seasoned veterans was the trip up Route 12.  OK.  I just drove several hundred miles and now they wanted me to take a ride up some stupid old state route?  Probably a curvy, two-laned thing.  They said we would get to see Duck and wild horses.  OK, ducks and wild horses.  What was the big deal with that.

As it turns out, Duck is the name of a really cool town...ritzy, but nice.  And the wild horses are truly wild, they roam freely throughout the dunes area, are protected by law and date back to the Spanish explorers who came to that area.  That was the big deal with those two things, and I'll write about them later.  But the trip up Route 12 (Ocean Trail) was fun.  We read all the warnings about driving anything other than a heavy duty 4-wheel-drive Jeep out there.  The road went through the town of Duck and through a gate and onto the beach.  In fact, it was sand dunes pretty much all the way up to Virginia.  People lived out there and had to drive this sand beach road any time they wanted to go to town, go to the grocery store or, as often was the case, to evacuate the area due to storms.I bet this was pretty tricky at times.  The sand was pretty deep and soft in lots of places and cars would tent to bottom out and get stuck quite a bit.  Our understanding from those who have been there before is that it can cost up to $400 to get pulled out by the tow truck guys who are parked all along the route, sipping a cool one or working on their tans while they wait for tourists to get bogged down.  The two pictures shown above give you an idea of what the road looked like at the beginning, just as you come through the gate that marks the edge of the town of Duck.  It didn't look too bad -- real hard sand.  That quickly changed.

Another thing that stood out when you started down Route 12 -- the fence marking the end of the sand portion of Route 12, which also served as the end of the wildlife preserve, ran out a long ways into the ocean.  That was to keep the wild horses from getting out of their area and into the civilized world.

Even though I have a Jeep (a Grand Cherokee, not a Wrangler) , I was not going to drive it out in the sand dunes.  I used to do that in the Army and remember getting a lot of sand in the universal joint areas as well as the brakes and wheel joints.  Enough of that and you can really screw up your vehicle.

These kinds of Jeeps were made for this kind of "on-roading."  This particular day was a beautiful, sun-filled, slightly breezy chamber of commerce afternoon.  These vehicles are technically parked in the median.  To their front is the beach and the road is to the rear.  It is like this practically every foot of the way to Virginia.

Imagine driving down a road with this view out the front, and the sides.  This really is a two-lane road, but it's anyone's guess as to where the lanes are.  Rule of the road -- just keep it off the grassy banks and out of the deep water.

Oh, yeah, so how did we get down this road?  We were on a tour, heading down to see the wild horses.  The vehicle we were on was a kinda African safari-looking thing.  A couple of times the driver hit some sand ruts and nearly threw everyone out of the back end of the vehicle.  Kinda reminded me of being bounced around in the back of a "deuce-and-a-half" back in the early days of the Army.

Wonder what kind of maintenance they have to do on that road, if any.  Wonder how much different this road is at night --  in the really, really dark.  This is not a Sunday afternoon drive -- this is more like a commitment.

Just because someone isn't on the same road as you doesn't mean he is lost.
Hooah

Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/hjacksonb101503.html?src=t_road

Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/hjacksonb101503.html?src=t_road

Kitty Hawk...

A long time ago, I wrote a lot of articles about my flying days.  Those times were right up there with the most challenging and exciting events of my life.  I am still a little bitter about having that taken away from me by the government, but every once in a while I get together with one of my friends from the pilot's club and we "go out" for a spin.  I guess what Sam doesn't know won't hurt him.

Anyway, Pam and I had the opportunity to take a trip to the Outer Banks area of North Carolina this past summer.  I know -- that has been a while ago and I'm just now getting around to writing about it.  I find I do my best golfing in temps above 45 and my best writing at temps below that.  BTW -- it's minus 1 degree outside now. There are lots of really great things to write about, but I wanted to start out with our visit to the Kitty Hawk area where the Wright Brothers first flew their plane.  There are lots of excellent exhibits and plenty of historical sights laying out what must have been an awesome time to live.  There are also plenty of displays that chronicle the written history of their work.  Probably much more than most people would want to take the time to read.

This plaque in the huge rock marked the spot where the first flight took place, going from there to  the first rock on that flight, the second rock on the second flight, and the third rock on the third and longest flight.  I do not recall if the small rail located to the right of the rock is the actual rail used in conjunction with the flight or if it is merely a visual aid.

The weather didn't hold allowing them to do much more beyond that, but their theory had been proven.  Powered flight was now a reality.

On the grounds there is also a mock-up of the work shop/shed where they supposedly did lots of work on the plane's parts, and supposedly parked things when they needed to get them in , out of the elements.  There were a lot of visitors there that day and since there was no Ranger around to watch the sheds, all the little kids felt they had to run around inside them.Not so sure I would have wanted my kids running around inside them.

Again, having been a pilot, I was pretty much into this place and what was done here.  But by itself, this wouldn't even begin to show the brilliance of these two brothers from Dayton, Ohio.  To get a better glimpse into the history of flying, people need to visit the Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson AFB, which is located in Dayton, OH.  Ironic. What they need to do here at Kitty Hawk is come up with some sort of time travel machine that would take visitors back and forth between Dayton and Kitty Hawk.  It is truly incredible to see the rapid advancement of aviation that took place after the Wright's flight of December 17, 1903.

Oh, and one other thing -- I don't know why it struck me as such a revelation, but there is a small airfield (NR01 is the field identifier.  Elevation is only 10' ASL - estimated)  there on the grounds.  When Pam and I were out on the  beach, I would see the typical tourist thing of an airplane flying over the beach, towing a banner advertising eating establishments, etc. But I never knew where they came from.  Now I know.

I would have loved to have been able to take the controls of one of their Cessna's and flown on the same grounds as the Wrights, the place where it all began.

Again, this was just one part of our vacation trip to the Outer Banks (a.k.a. "OBX"), but for me it was like going back to my favorite malt shop in Zanesville where I grew up.  I kinda think I knew what took place there and kinda remember what it all led to, but it was so much fun to see it.

When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.  (Leonardo Da Vinci) 

Hooah

You just never know how things will turn out...

I was in church last Sunday and a friend came in with some of his family with him.  One of the people was a lady, probably in her late 30s, who looked familiar.  Now, before you start shooting harpoons at me being a dirty old man, remember I was in church. So, cut me some slack.

As I was looking at the young lady, trying to remember a name, she said "I know you. You're Mr. B."  So that narrowed it down to the low thousands of people it could have been.  If I had remembered who she walked in with, I probably would have remembered quicker. 

Anyway, it seems that she was a student at THS back in the day.  She reminded me that when I returned to work (I was the Assistant Principal there) following a deployment for Desert Storm, I happened to be observing a teacher who was conducting a math class.  The students were asking that time honored question:  "When are we ever going to use this stuff."  I asked the teacher if I could answer that and proceded to tell them how important math was in figuring azimuths and back azimuths in something called land navigation, a skill that was very important in the military.  Of course, that was then and this is now.  All they have to know is how to turn on a GPS.  Progress?

I taught the class for the next two days and then I took the class out to the football field where I had laid out a compass course and let them have at it.  As they came to the correct location, they were either given a front azimuth or a back azimuth and they had to figure out which one they had and then find their way to the next spot.  If they navigated the course correctly, they got a candy bar at the end. 

She said she has remembered that course and how much fun it was.  Then, surprisingly, she told me she now is a math teacher.  Go figure. With all the pressure on teachers today to be "accountable" and teach for the "test" I doubt she could take time to teach something like this.  Too bad.

And then, just when we finished talking about that, another friend who was listening to all of this said he was talking to a young person up town  who said they were from Anna.  He said if that was the case, then you probably know Mr. B.  The young person said yes -- he used to have writing contests at the school and the one who won would get a plane ride from him (back when I had my pilot's license).  I also would take the middle school student of the month up for a ride.  That was fun and the kids really enjoyed seeing Wal-Mart and their grand parents' farm from 3,000 ft.

Those were some really great times and I thoroughly enjoyed working with young people. I think some of them learned a few things and really liked flying.  I enjoyed any excuse to take the plane out.

When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.

Hooah