Day 33 of ALAA-Wed, June 15th, 2011-From Virginia Beach, VA to Moorhead City, NC

Welcome to North Carolina!



Looking back up the Wright Brothers' field to Kill Devil Hill



Facing Wilbur's Take Off Point is Where I Got Goosebumps!

Just about all of today has been spent on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. The most enjoyable part of today was the Wright Bros National Memorial in Kitty Hawk, NC. It's an amazingly simple memorial made up of about five buildings, Kill Devil Hill, and the field where Orville and Wilbur took off and landed in Dec of 1903. There are markers for each of those first four flights along with a huge monument at the top of KDH. I got goosebumps when I stood at the 4th Flight Marker 852 feet away and facing the the First Flight Boulder. I felt the strong wind come off the Atlantic over my back. That's the same wind that made the Wright brothers select this site for their first attempts at powered flight and to choose the direction for their flights. They needed THAT very same wind from THAT very same direction to provide the lift for the Wright Flyer! Yes, I'm not ashamed to admit that I had goosebumps!

The 4th Flight Marker is at the top of this map of the memorial. The goosebumps came when I looked back toward Kill Devil Hill.

I'm on my second ferry of the day: the first one was from Cape Hatteras to the North end of Ocracoke Island. That one was about 20 minutes long while this one, from the South end of Ocracoke to Cedar Island, lasts two hours and 15 minutes. Most of this is the Cape Hatteras Natl Seashore. Croatan National Forest is just South of Cedar Island and I'm going to be looking for a campsite there tonight.

Cape Hatteras Ferry (This was one of only 2 free ferries I rode on ALAA)

This is the Ocracoke to Cedar Island Ferry where I ran into 4-5 biker guys from Tennessee. They wanted me to ride all the way down to Wilmington with them that night but I just didn't have the energy to ride that far . . . . . . and especially in the dark! I wanted to see the scenery.

Sunset on the Ferry from Okracoke Island to Cedar Island, NC