Matthews Mountain Messages: Vacation Trip

We took our "pre-summer" vacation last weekend and it definitely turned out to be a "pre-summer" vacation. Our destination was Kitty Hawk beach in North Carolina, which normally would have been in the 70's to 80's this time of the year. Not this past weekend, they had overnight lows in the high 40's and highs in the 60's! But we still managed to have a good time.

We left early last Saturday morning and drove about half way to Kitty Hawk. Along the way we went through Pigeon Forge and ate at Johnny Carino's Italian restaurant (one of our favorites) and drove through parts of the Smokey Mountains. We completed the trip to Kitty Hawk, NC by about 3:00 PM Sunday afternoon. We had plenty of rain and wind for the drive on Sunday. The weather was so bad on Sunday evening that we just went out to eat and rested for the evening. We did find an excellent BBQ restaurant that specialized in NC style BBQ (the vinegar based stuff) which is one of my favorites. However, Robin did not like it as much as I do, but I have to admit that I did not like it the 1st time I ate it (it is an acquired taste).

We woke up Monday morning to temperatures in the 50's, winds from 20-35 MPH, and down pours of rain. We did not let that stop us though!! After our Holiday Inn Express breakfast, we started our adventurous day. First on our list of things to do was to go to the light house on Hatteras Island . This was about a 60 mile drive on the barrier islands. We went through Rodanthe (from the movie "Nights in Rodanthe") along the way. Upon arrival at the lighthouse we discovered that they were not allowing anyone to climb the lighthouse due to high winds. We took a few snapshots and started heading back towards Kitty Hawk.

On the way back we stopped at a Civil War monument site and visited another lighthouse (but did not climb it either). We then went to one of the NC aquariums on Roanoke Island. It was not the best aquarium I have ever been to, but the large crowds at the aquarium (due to weather) may have contributed to the downgrade. Roanoke Island was the location of the first English speaking child in the new world (Virginia Dare) and subsequently "The Lost Colony" for all of you history buffs.

After the aquarium, the weather was clearing up a bit (still windy and cloudy, but no rain), so we decided to go see the Wright Brothers Monument and Museum. We watched a 40 minute video on the Wright Brothers then went and saw the monument, a set-up recreation of the first flight, and also saw the markers that located where the 1st four flights occurred.

We then proceeded to play a game of miniature golf. This was the 1 thing we had to do before we left. It was very cool in that you go on a train ride to the top of the course and then play the course as you come down the little mini-mountain golf trail. Robin, being the miniature golf expert got a hole-in-one on the first hole and led the first 7-8 holes, but I began to catch fire with my putter and ended up winning the game.

We then went to have dinner at a buffet seafood restaurant. The seafood was ok, but the service was terrible. It took forever for our waitress to get us anything and the ice cream machine ran out right as Robin was wanting to put some on her apple crisp. After dinner we decided to take the obligatory walk down the beach even though it was cold and windy. It was a good walk though after a large buffet meal. After a good nights rest that night, we got up and ate our Holiday Inn Express breakfast and headed for home. We got back around 9:45 on Tuesday night.

Below are some of the pictures we took while on vacation.

This was on Saturday as we were entering North Carolina

Ok, I never thought I would see a snow/sand plow on the beaches of North Carolina. It is a good thing that they have these as the wind blown sand and rain were covering the road.