The OBX

The biggest event I missed writing about was our trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It was our first real family vacation in 14 years...and it was fabulous. We spent 9 days on the road...flying into Norfolk, Va. for a night, then driving down to Nags Head for 7 days, then back to Norfolk for a final day to visit their aquarium and science center. It was all fantastic.

I could give you a day by day, activity by activity, meal by meal account of the trip...but I won't. It would take about 40 posts and involve overwhelming Blogger with hundreds of photos. But I will say we had the opportunity to enjoy swimming and playing in the ocean, going on dolphin watches, touring nesting sites of sea turtles, hiking, visiting the largest natural sand dunes in the eastern United States, flying kites on the beaches and the dunes, and so much more.

Yes, there were four of us with digital cameras so we really did come home with hundreds of photos. Son21 even documented his trip in food...taking a photo of his plate at every restaurant we visited. And I'm sure if you visited the Facebook pages of the kids, you would find more photos of our trip.

But I'll only show you a few here. If you want to see them all, drop by the house for a beer and a slide show.



We rented a house in Nag's Head for the week. It was a beautiful house with all the amenities - fully stocked kitchen, laundry service, heated pool, hot tub, five balconies, and nine (yes NINE) TV/DVD players. And each bedroom was a master suite so every kid had their own bedroom and bath. They felt quite pampered! LOL

The best part of it all was the location. Sitting in the family room or the dining room, we could look one direction and look out over the ocean...and in the other direction we could enjoy Albermarle Sound. And to walk to the beach...60 seconds. The photo above was the beach we visited nearly every day. It was perfect.



Not sure the photo really illustrates just how big and tall the dunes at Jockey's Ridge really are...but they were huge! It was definitely a workout to hike around the dunes. And Daughter15 and I returned to the dunes later in the week for some kite flying.



It seemed we could not get enough of the beautiful sunsets...whether on the beach, on our balcony, or here at the Sound.


There are a lot of famous lighthouses on the Outer Banks. This one, the Bodie Island Lighthouse, was closest to where we were.



It really was one of the most beautiful places I've ever visited. And even in a busy summer week, there were plenty of open spaces and serene locales.

It was a fun trip. And after the past ten months or so, it was quite restorative for our family.