East Coast Beach Bums

Last week we went on vacation out to the Delaware, Virgina, and North Carolina coasts. We went to the beach a lot. We visited beaches in every state, and since it was so hot last week it was the perfect thing to be doing. We probably would have done more land activities but it was really just so hot I couldn't stand being out walking around for long. We did make a couple history pit stops:

The old and new Cape Henry lighthouses located in Fort Story (north of Virginia Beach). The old one was built in 1792, the new one in 1881. They are near the "first landing" spot, where the Virginia Company first landed in 1607 after crossing the Atlantic (and then they moved on up the bay and established Jamestown.)


We also stopped at the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills (just outside of Kitty Hawk), North Carolina where the Wright brothers made the first successful airplane flight in 1903. Here are Julia and I at the spot where the plane took off from.
On the first successful day of flight they flew four times. There is a marker for how far each flight went. The first flight was crazy short, 12 seconds, but you can just barely see the last marker for the fourth flight of 59 seconds. They chose Kitty Hawk because of the good wind conditions and sand for soft landings. Grass has since been planted on the site to make it a little more stable.
Then we headed south to the very southern town in the Outer Banks, Ocracoke. We had to drive down to the end of the Outer Banks and then take a forty minute ferry out to Ocracoke. Ocracoke was interesting. It's this little tiny town whose only industry is tourism, so the town mostly consists of locally owned inns, rental houses, and restaurant. During the day everyone is gone from town because they are all at the beach! But since the town is so small and the entire island is beach the beaches still aren't very crowded.Julia absolutely loved the beach. She wasn't afraid of the water at all, she would run straight into the water and I would have to chase after her to keep her from being swept away! She also liked to sit farther up on the beach and feel the waves lap up around her and feel the water rush back. But, her favorite part was playing in the sand and destroying dad's sand castles.