the kids on the beach: a little bit of a ghost in that photo
ghost crab; web photoI brought 2 of my nieces kids down for the weekend. I had promised them a long time a go that I would take them to the beach and let them look for ghost crabs but it did not look promising last night. On our way down from
Things have really picked up here on the Outer Banks. The tourists have arrived in droves and the traffic is, for lack of a better word … bad. This past week my son was involved in his first auto accident. He was rear ended by a local. You see it can take a month or so for us who live on the Outer Banks year round to get use to the heavy traffic. We are accustomed to be-bopin along at the “speed limit” and making right on red turns this all changes when summer hits. Once the “visitor's” get here you are lucky if you can get to 50mph on the bypass and right on red turns are very dangerous. The folks at “Ron and Phils body shop” told me that work for them really backs up until around July 4th then it levels back out. I think the point here is that when summer hits ya gotta slow down and take a little more time to get where you are going also remember if your late your late so don’t get your self hurt over it. Drive safe and stay off my bumper.
My mother and I walked over to the “farmers market” in down town Manteo today. It was a good walk for me, mom lives about a mile from town, and we got to walk down some of the quiet roads in town. The market did not have much to offer by way of local produce, I did find some local blueberries and cherry tomatoes yum, but I did know some of the vender's and they were local and that is what farmers market’s are about, local people selling fresh and when ever possible local products to the local community. Hopefully there will be more locally grown produce when the local growing season reaches its peak in mid July. I can’t wait for the fresh corn that will be available around July 4th!
This is a shot of an actress that I think is portraying Queen Elizabeth. She is sitting on the old court house steps down town Manteo
Why are these people out of the water
photo of a bull shark thanks to a search on google
The life guards earned their money in my eyes when they blew the whistle letting us know about this shark. Seems this “little” guy had been moving up and down the coast all day. The guards think it was a bull shark and that it may have been between 12 and 14 feet long.
Sharks are an important part of the ecosystem. They are to be respected and as far as I'm concerned feared but this shark had every right to be where it was, the ocean after all is its home.
Just some folks enjoying the beach
Dolphin's and boats
Wet jeepI went down with a few friends to Oregon Inlet yesterday and other than the fly’s it was a great beach day (the wind was out of the west and that always means biting fly’s) As you can see from the photos it’s a great place to bring the family. You can only get to this beach with 4 wheel drive and you need to take note of the tide. If you go out at low tide you have to watch out; you would not want your vehicle sinking in the sand when the tide comes back in. Anyway we were treated to pelicans, dolphins and boats so there was always something to watch.
When we got home I did not close up the jeep, big mistake, it stormed last night and even though I had put the roof up and closed the windows I had not put the side panels back on. The storm was so bad that the instrument panel and inside windshield were wet. I woke up at
Tropical storm Barry promises to bring much needed rain to the Outer Banks tomorrow but today is just another day at the beach. It’s warm this morning. It was 71 degrees at around 
these photos were taken this morning around 8amMy #3 son and I made it up to the mountains last weekend and it was a good trip. I did not have time to take any photos while I was there, it was a there and back trip. We did find time to see Pirates of the Caribbean (liked it) and go to Barns & Noble I also talked to a builder and made arrangements to talk to two architects when I’m up there in July. Man I guess we were busy.
Things here on the yard & garden side are going good (of course that’s not unusual for this time of year). Every thing is just so….. green. I love it!
I will say that the weather on the Banks this past week has been PERFECT. Temperatures in the upper 60’s to 70 with bright sun and mild winds. It has been a pleasure to be out. Work has been slow but of course that will change Friday when the first batch of true summer visitors arrives. I think it will be a good weekend for any who visit.
As good as things are promising to be here at the beach my #3 son and I will be leaving for the mountains Friday for a short (48 hours) trip. #3 son has found the perfect summer job, he will be installing wireless internet. This trip may be the only time this summer he will make it to the mountains and as I enjoy his company and the fact that he likes it up there as much as I; short trip or not we are going.
One little thing about the cost of gas. It went up 4 cents yesterday to $313 a gallon. I’m not the least bit surprised. I can’t wait to see what kind of profits the oil companies post this year. You would think they would have spent some of the profits from last year on refinery updates. Oh well. I love my Jeep but I will be using it less this year. All trips will be thought out, no short trips to the store. I’m also looking into electric scooters. What would be ideal is to have one that could be charged using solar. I really think that renewables are the future. When I’m living in the mountains I will need a 4 wheel drive but for short trips a scooter would work just fine. This web site is a good source of information related to electric and hybrid vehicles www.evworld.com
They promised us rain today and while it is very cloudy and there have been a few sprinkles there has been no rain. I have been spending as much time as possible in the yard planting and fertilizing hoping that this year’s garden will not be as disappointing as the last years was. Of course if the garden does not pan out this year it won’t matter because next year I will try again. Gardens are always a surprise; all of the flowers with the exception of the pink dianthus in the photo above were planted in years past I don’t even know what most of them are but they came up this year and they are beautiful. There are a few plants that have yet to flower I can’t wait to see what they turn out to be.
Now what?Well I have one more certificate under my belt so I am now even more certifiable than I was before. Of course the course I took, which is required if someone wants to work in the department I work in, is being updated so many of the protocols we were tested on are not in use or have been updated so I really should retake the course in 2008 but I don’t have to until 2011. What would you do? No more education for me until September, right now I can relate to how the kids feel as the school year ends!!
We have had a lot of weather on the banks this week. Today is cloudy and cool, yesterday was “hot” and partly cloudy. I felt bad for my neighbors who came down from
To all it applies to:
“Happy Mothers day”
view of the beach near the Avalon pier. the wind is kicking so bad that it felt like I was being hit with a sand blaster
Another windy day here on the banks. The kids in dare county have the day off thanks to the wind unfortunately this will mean school on Saturday and no trip to the mountains this weekend for #3 son and me but heck we will go the weekend after next. Other than the wind, which is going to calm down by mid week, and a small chance each day of some much needed rain looks like a good week ahead
Last night we got some much needed rain and today we have a blustery wind. The flags are flying straight out and the sound is rough, the waves each crested with white foam. It is not what most people would say a good day at the beach should be but then most people aren’t me. This is a great day to read a book and just relax. I have the window shades open so that I can watch the trees bend with the wind and the clouds speed by allowing brief intervals of blue sun filled sky. Days like this invite people to relax, sit back and slow down.
We did have some nice weather for Bike Week which lasted through last weekend. The motorcycles were everywhere I think there were a lot more bikers this year than last. It seems to be getting more popular. All the business owners I spoke to were happy to have the bikers and no one I spoke to had anything bad to say about the Bike Week event. I was too busy to go check out the bikes but I saw some nice looking bikes on the road. It got a “little” noisy but other than that Bike Week was good for the Outer Banks
I did some errands and some tooling around today. I stopped at the Avalon Pier. The water was a nice aqua blue and the sky was bright. If it did not get so darn hot here in the summer, if the weather stayed like this, I’m not sure I would move to the mountains. Spring and fall the best times of year here on the Outer Banks!!
Well it was a great day here on the Outer Banks so good in fact that I wanted to ride down the beach with the jeep top down. After calling everyone I could think of I was able to get a daughter of one of my friends to go with me. we went down to Oregon Inlet, let the air out of the tires with a pressure gauge given to us by two young men 'take them down to 15lb's and you can go any where" they said as they waved to us and headed on their way. We went all the way down to the point where we saw about a dozen folk’s horse back riding then we turned around and found a spot to park so we could look for shells.
After we left the inlet we went a little further south to a nature preserve where we took in the view and met the snake pictured above.
Throughout the day we met some of the nicest folks. From the boys who gave us the pressure gauge and the folks we joked with while filling our tires at the Oregon Inlet fishing station to the volunteers at the preserve everyone just seemed to be in a great mood. Must be spring.
A few days ago I was watching a Kevin Bacon movie and saw a commercial that featured the lawyer the movie "A Few Good Men" was based on. I smiled and thought "6 degrees of Kevin Bacon". You see a few years back my #1 son was a stage hand in the community theater production of “A Few Good Men”. The lawyer Mr. Don Marcari who the movie was based on was there to answer questions and that is how I met him. He answered a few of my questions. When you apply the 6 degrees of separation rule it could be said that because I met Mr. Marcari I am 2 degrees away from everyone he comes in contact with. I think it’s safe to assume he has met Mr. Tom Cruse so I am 2 degrees away from Tom Cruse and 3degrees away from everyone he comes in contact with. Its amazing to me how interconnected we humans are.
For the past few days I had been avoiding the news because I knew that the media would be capitalizing on the Virginia Tec tragedy and I just did not want to feed into it. While driving yesterday I did turn my radio on and was pleasantly surprised to find that NPR was tactfully interviewing people who knew the victims. They related stories of a wide variety of good people. One woman from Floyd Va told of a music student she knew. While I was listening to her I realized that I know a person who works at VA Tec. in the engineering department and my stomach sank. The person I know is fine but again look how intertwined we are. A woman from Floyd; were I’m going to be moving is on the radio and someone I know works at the school where this terrible thing had happened. It is a small world.
What this post is trying to convey is that we are all connected in some way to everyone else. If we accept this then maybe we can influence those around us. I have introduced “6 degrees of separation” now let me introduce “the butterfly effect”. Every action no matter how small has an effect on the whole. An example of this is that if a butterfly flaps its wings in Africa, this causes the air to move, this movement of air builds into a thunder storm, that storm goes off the coast of Africa into the Atlantic and forms into a hurricane ect. ect. If we perform one kindness to another, open the door for someone, give a stranger a quarter when there short, let someone pass us on the road, just a little kindness then maybe they will pass this kindness on. There is no guarantee that the receiver of the kindness will pass it on but the stranger who did not need your help but saw you help someone else might be inspired to pass on a kindness of his own and maybe by that kindness someone will be touched and rethink an action that could have lead to a horrendous act.
This is why houses are built on pilings.
There is a canal back there somewhere.
going out?
Parking lot of the only bar on the Island
Its a real dive but if you have the right frame of mind and the right
company and don't expect too much like food it can be fun
The Outer Banks got something it needed yesterday, a steady all day rain. Today we have bright skies, brisk wind and sound side flooding. I live on a small island behind the Wright Brothers Memorial called Colington. There is only one road off and as you can see from the photos when the winds come hard and steady from the west it floods. Thanks to the wind the kids in Dare county have one more day of spring break.
