OBX = Outer Banks

It was quite a task to get ourselves out of Washington DC yesterday -- lots of traffic, lots of roadwork, lots of lane changes and lots of rough roads. As we crossed Virginia, the road was like a tunnel with no roof. The guide book talked about "limited views" and that's exactly what we saw -- nothing but trees beside the road. To be fair, the trees were larger and prettier than those we had seen earlier, but after a while, it was pretty boring!

We decided to take the time to stop at Williamsburg after reading the description of a carefully restored town -- faithful to the original 1700-1800. We parked at the visitors' centre, declined the $39 ticket to get into the buildings, and opted for a $2 shuttle ticket from the centre to the village. Actually, we could have walked. Disappointment was the response of the day. The buildings looked pretty modern for the 1800's. People in period costumes equaled about 4 and each store had almost identical expensive items. I suppose if one paid for the ticket into other buildings and paid more to see some of the presentations it would be a better experience. To top it all off, I had a couple of little items that I decided to buy, but while the clerk chatted away with someone about a trip to Germany, I stood and waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, I decided to put the items back and off we went back to the tree-lined tunnel! If you happen to be driving through Virginia on I-95, don't bother to leave the tunnel for Williamsburg!

We persevered with the inconveniences and ultimately crossed into the peaceful zone of the Outer Banks. The road changed from two or three or four lanes each way to just a single lane. The speed limit changed from 65 to 45 and life seemed easier. Well, "easier" was what we thought until we began looking for a place to stay. The accommodations are expensive and pretty grubby. We stayed at the Tarheels Motel and I will say that it's pretty much the worst place I've stayed at. I won't go into details, but stay away from that place if you're ever in Nags Head, North Carolina!

This morning we stopped at some outlet stores, made a few purchases, and began searching for somewhere to stay tonight! Since the Tarheels wireless connection didn't work, we parked outside another place and found an unsecured wireless connection. We searched and searched and searched until the laptop battery was used up and then we just started to drive on down the islands. We changed our minds about our needs (ocean front wasn't necessary) and our price range (up past $100 now). We thought we'd found a good one in Avon until we went to look at the room (we don't do things sight unseen around here). The room was only a half a step up from the Tarheels, but there was a huge dead cockroach on the floor!! Stay away from the Avon Motel. By now, we decided to just find something decent at any price. We're in the Hatteras Marlin Motel. It's not on the beach and it cost more than we'd hoped. It's clean. It has a phone. The bathtub seems to be in one piece. The only complaint is that we seem to have a party of very loud men next door.

We drove out to the Hatteras Light House. Nita, you would love to see this one. I believe it's the tallest brick beacon in the US at 208 feet.

We stopped to look at bathing suits on the way back from the lighthouse, but didn't find anything I wanted . . . maybe tomorrow.

Our plans are to play on the beach in Ocracoke tomorrow before getting our reserved 3:30 sailing on the ferry to the mainland. By the way, those of you in BC need to weep over this -- it's a 2 1/2 hour ferry ride at a total cost of $15. The ferries go every 2 or 3 hours. I'm sure it will be a smaller ferry than the Vancouver Island ferries, but . . . $15???

Tomorrow night we have reservations at a motel in Morehead City, NC. We're not sure where we'll go after that. Maybe we can find something to do other than look for motels.