View Larger Map
ocracoke is part of the "outer banks," the series of barrier islands along the north carolina coast. we drove to cedar island and then took a 2 hour ferry ride out to ocracoke.
as you can see, we caught the sunset on the ferry, so we had to make camp in the dark. we cooked some dinner and had a nice evening watching the fire, drinking some beer, and staring at the stars.
in the morning, we hopped across a sand dune to the beach. we picked up a little screened canopy which came in handy due to the ridiculous amount of mosquitoes that came out in the daytime heat. i got quite a few bites, but laura was eaten alive...
in the afternoon, we drove to the north end of the island, where we hopped onto another ferry for hatteras island. we drove out to the lighthouse ("america's lighthouse") and had some ice cream before heading back to camp.
here's a few time-lapse photos we took with a flaming log... :)
we packed up and headed home on sunday, stopping for a bit at atlantic beach, which is also amazingly beautiful. we're really enjoying our time here in north carolina... :)
--dave
p.s. there's more photos in my facebook album
[ add comment ] | permalink | related link
got a new espresso machine to celebrate laura's first paycheck. she got halloween decorations. ;)
just wanted to throw some photos up here to make walter jealous...
--dave
[ add comment ] | permalink | related link
we had a break in the clouds and decided to go on a little hike in the jordan lake state park. it was a really pretty hike through the pines with nice views of the lake. doesn't look like there's much of a trail, but they had lots of markers tacked onto the trees so we didn't get lost. we had a little picnic and got back to the car right before some rain started coming down.
--dave
[ add comment ] | permalink | related link
so we decided it was about time we made the whopping 20 mile trip to raleigh. we started off at the state farmer's market, which is an enormous city block of fruit and vegetable stands along with breads, honey, pottery -- pretty much everything you'd expect at a farmer's market. got a few goodies to take home. we'll definitely be back soon...
after the farmer's market, we headed downtown to the museum of natural sciences, which was excellent. it was also free, except for a dead sea scrolls exhibit that we'll have to check out another time. they have all kinds of info about animals from the state, including a complete acrocanthasaurus skeleton (NOT a t-rex...). evidently, this guy lived 45 million years before the t-rex and is called "the terror of the south."
nick ended up overnighting in raleigh, so we picked him up and walked around downtown. we had a few beers and then a nice dinner at a carribean restaurant (laura approves). for some reason, this is the only photo we took together, of him serving me some water (doing what he does best)...
--dave
[ 2 comments ] ( 3 views ) | permalink | related link
so yesterday we got some new furniture delivered! we ended up getting a kitchen table which isn't quite as high as most bar-style sets but still a little higher than normal. it's got a nice storage area in the middle with a wine rack and shelves. in memory of walter, we graced it with a south african pinotage. :) there's also some pretty little flowers that came in a beer mug vase this morning from lauren, i believe.
then there's the living room set: sofa, loveseat, accent chair, two end tables, and lamps. there's also a coffee table, but for some reason it's on backorder until sometime in october. they're all really comfortable, although we're not sure where to place everything. it all works fine now, but when the larger TV comes in, we'll probably have to reshuffle (need more wii space, too... ;)
--dave
[ 1 comment ] ( 1 view ) | permalink | related link
well, we actually made it in on sunday, but since we just got our internet connection hooked up, the entry's a little late. i'm sure you all were just worried sick, too. ;)
this photo's of us on the curb in front of the house. you can see we've got quite a few trees around us...
here's the final shot of the odometer. it hasn't been reset since we left fairbanks, so you'll need to add a 4 in front of the reading: 4,921 miles (not too shabby).
the car's still running, although it's kinda sputtering here and there when idling. we'll take him in for a tune up in the next few days, the poor little guy... :)
--dave
[ 1 comment ] ( 1 view ) | permalink | related link
alright, i'm finally caught up. this will probably be the last entry for a little while, since we'll be heading into durham tomorrow and i don't know how long we'll be without internet access. we'll have our cell phones, though, so feel free to give us a call (907-687-5077)...
we drove into st. louis around 10:00 but couldn't find anywhere to park. we drove around the arch area for about 20 minutes and saw a few garages, but we didn't want to pay $5 to just walk out and see the arch. so we rolled with drive-by photos from the car. :)
we finally made it east of the mississippi! we drove a stretch of illinois and kentucky and made it into nashville and finally knoxville tennessee. we'll probably call it an early night so we can get a good start for tomorrow's drive. we'll be heading through smoky mountain national park and then it's a straight shot to durham.
only 350 miles to go...
--dave
[ add comment ] | permalink | related link
day 11: chamberlain, south dakota to columbia, missouri. we drove across four states today (south dakota, iowa, nebraska, and missouri). we overslept a bit in chamberlain (didn't set the alarm quite right) but we managed to get out of town around 8:00am or so. on the road to sioux falls, we kept seeing billboards for a "corn palace" in mitchell, SD. couldn't pass it up.
by some weird coincidence, the same town had a cabelas. since my dad would disown me if we passed it up, we walked around for about half an hour. laura managed to find a replacement leatherman juice (her old one is somewhere at the bottom of the chena river).
the rest of the drive was fairly uneventful. we went through omaha and kansas city and stopped for the day in columbia, about halfway between kansas city and st. louis. we ended up finding a great barbecue place and had a little walk around town and into the college (mizzou). the downtown area had a great ambiance and the campus was very beautiful. it felt kinda funny walking around the campus along with a bunch of returning students, though... :)
--dave
[ add comment ] | permalink | related link
we left billings and drove all the way to chamberlain, south dakota. we had quite a bit of waiting for road construction around the cheyenne reservation, which kinda bummed us out. we lost a good hour of driving but still made it to mount rushmore pretty easily. we spent a bit of time there looking at the making-of photos and videos, then took off for rapid city and finally chamberlain (on the missouri river).
the rest of the drive was a piece of cake...
--dave
[ 1 comment ] ( 1 view ) | permalink | related link
so we made it into billings a bit earlier than expected, thanks to a little extra driving the night before.
we had a great time with my parents, my sister lauren, and our dog shiloh. not really any pictures of us together for some reason. i guess we were just too busy eating, drinking, and soaking in the hot tub.
on monday dad took us fly fishing on the bighorn river. it was a beautiful day (a bit hot, if anything), and we were just wading in our shorts. i ended up catching two brown trout and a rainbow and laura caught her first rainbow trout on the fly rod (which kept making weird barking noises). it was a bit slow, but we ended up having a great time nonetheless.
we ended up taking the car in for an alignment since it was making some crazy vibration at highway speeds and the guy told us that the tires were way too worn. we had steel belt showing on a couple of tires. i guess it was all those gravel patches on the alaska highway. ;)
we got the tires changed out easy enough and were on our way...
--dave
[ add comment ] | permalink | related link
Next
Calendar
