Day Six - Beach "Daze" Begins
Onward to the Outer Banks and the best beaches EVER, not to mention the friendliest park ranger we have ever met - Ranger Bo! Went to Kitty Hawk and marveled at how much progress the Wright Brother made in one day. All of the sudden we looked up and the sky turned blue (add in angelic choirs in the background) and later there was even a rainbow. The Outer Banks were a bit more built up than expected, until we got to Ocracoke. Ahhh, soft, fine sand that squeaks as you walk on it. Clams that peak out of the waves and bury themselves as the water recedes. Tons of beautiful seashells found everywhere. It was a beautiful, sunny day with just enough breeze off the ocean to make it absolutely comfortable. The night was filled with whippoorwills, "synthesizer"frogs (that is really what they sounded like), and "duck" frogs.
Lesson Five - Ranger Bo taught us the phrase "beach mode" - not a state of mind, just a way of existing. We have fully embraced this ever since.
Day Seven - Cowboy Crowds
Loved the ferry from Ocracoke to Cedar Island - this is a definite Spring break vacation in our future. Got to Myrtle Beach only to find out that there was a country music festival for the weekend. It definitely made for a more colorful crowd while walking along the boardwalk. First stop - I Love (Heart) Sugar for our eternal sweet tooth. Found some of the craziest candies and novelties I have ever seen. Eiley walked out with a bag of sweets and even Bri found some candy beach toys. Next stop - the Gay Dolphin. This place was a multiple story maze of every piece of beach kitsch you can imagine. Alas, they still didn't have the figurine we were looking for our car (the Blue Pearl - the continental tour and constant soiree mobile). Grabbed some ice cream, walked along the beach, and watched "aliens" approaching the shore for 20 minutes. Aliens, you say. Here is the setting - beach is mostly deserted, sun is down, everything is backlit from the boardwalk behind us and there is a glowing, bobbing mass about 1/2 a mile into the ocean - fish? plankton? some sort of genetically modified something? divers coming in from a night dive? We have no idea; we are just making up the weirdest things we can think of. The girls started to freak out a little, but wouldn't leave until they could figure out what these glowing things were. Finally, after 20 minutes one of the glowing blobs takes off in flight. Ahhh, white birds that are reflecting the light behind us. Guess it was now time to go "home" to sleep.
Lesson Six - Sometimes glowing blobs in the wine dark sea are just gulls.
Day Eight - Broiling at Myrtle Beach
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| OK, this was at Orlando, but they are riding the waves. |
Slathered on so much sunscreen, we thought we would make it through a day at the beach. Kids learned to ride the waves, VERY FUN! Hung out with kids from Malta of all places - wherever you go, there Albany is. I guess we will be seeing them again when we all get back from vacation. By the time we left the beach six hours later (and many sunscreen reapplications), the family was set to Xtra crispy. Not one of us left without some strange looking sunburn.
Lesson Seven - When the thermometer goes "ding", you should have left the beach already.
Day Nine - Jekyll Island (Where the Beaches are Paved)
Laid in bed most of the morning, so that we could leave Myrtle Beach after Big Mike's Soul Food restaurant opened up. As the children said on the way out of the restaurant, "That isn't fried chicken the way my mom makes it." Alas, I will have to practice a lot more, along with the black-eyed peas and collards (though we all agreed that our collards recipe were just as good). The road to Jekyll Island was filled with cranes, flamingos, egrets, and many other shorebirds I don't know the name of. Probably the most beautiful estuary I have ever seen (though outside of Ocracoke is a close second). Got to Jekyll Island a little later in the afternoon and checked out their beaches. Strange sand that feels like a solid, hard surface. The sand was so fine that it mixed with the ocean waves and made them look brown. Kind of gross to look at and hard to sit on, but great to walk along. I need to give props to the sunset - something about a sunset seen through palm trees really works for me.
Lesson Eight - Sometimes the sand can be too fine.
Day Ten - Plantations, Pirate Ships, Manatees, and Forts
Jamey found a great historic plantation that allowed tours. Since we hadn't really seen any old style plantations at this point, we headed over to Kingsley Plantation. Strange history to this place - the plantation was a slave trader who married a slave, and the wife who was a slave becomes a slave owner. Really interesting to remember how the Africans of the time viewed slavery (since they were the ones who sold the slaves to the Europeans). Most of the slave's quarters were somewhat intact, as was the plantation house itself. It gave a great comparison. We headed to Saint Augustine after this. At first we thought it was just a sort of dumpy city with very little parking, but when we got to the historic downtown area we were impressed. There are a lot of beautiful, old structures with tons of FL and American history. While walking to the fort, Eiley looks over at the pirate ship in the harbor and asks Jamey a question. As he looked over, he saw a bunch of things swimming right next to the edge of the water walkway. As they stuck their heads up, we realized it was a group of 5 manatees going by playing with each other. Very cool! Headed to our rental house in Orlando and were pleasantly surprised by how big and nice the house was. Always nice to have a pleasant surprise.
Day Eleven - Dangering Diagon Alley
Carol acted like a kid this morning with her impatience to leave early... apparently she was really excited about getting to Diagon Alley. There was no disappointment here! Universal delivered as it has in the past. Diagon Alley was awesome, although the search for hot butter beer involved three short lines and persistence. The great thing was that by the time we got the hot butter beer, a storm had passed and the temperature was cool enough that we actually enjoyed the warmth more than we originally would have (when we settled for butterbeer ice cream and slush). Although we thought we were done by 7, the kids didn't want to leave and we ended up closing out the park. Who would have known.
Lesson Ten - Impatience won't get the family out earlier, it just makes you annoying :)
Day Twelve and Thirteen - Islands of Adventure Await
Back to the where it all began a couple of years ago. Eiley was tall enough to ride The Hulk and Dragon Challenge this time and we made up for her missing it last time (with 3 rides and 5 rides respectively). Had a fantastic time, though we ended up closing out the park again. The third day, we convinced the girls we shouldn't even bother going to the park until 2 (assuming they were going to want to stay until it closed again - we did).
Lesson Eleven - Late in the day means no lines to wait in.
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