Wilson, NC, April 12 -- Yesterday we arrived in the early afternoon for a couple nights at a small rv park outside of Wilson, which is about 20 miles south of Rocky Mount and probably 50 miles east of Raleigh-Durham. We are doing a lay-over here until we can get to the rv park close to the northern Outer Banks which doesn’t honor the rv membership discount on the weekends. There isn’t much in Wilson. In fact, we went looking for a place for dinner tonight after a long day -- more below -- but barely found a town. I had to go through my pantry and freezer to find something quick for dinner.
Because there isn’t much here we decided to explore the area east of us, through Greenville: Pamlico and Albermarle sounds and maybe even make it to Ocracoke in the southern Outer Banks. We decided to head for Swan Quarter and take the ferry to Ocracoke. So more than 100 miles later we arrived at the ferry. Too bad for us: during the winter the ferry only runs at 9:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. Even on a Saturday in mid-April. No wonder there was no traffic going to or coming from Swan Quarter.
We drove northeast and eventually made it to Roanoke Island and then Bodie Island via a couple of very long bridges. We stopped at a beach on the south end of Nags Head but the wind was blowing so hard it felt like we were in a sand blaster. The sand was very painful hitting our legs. Nags Head was named after “the practice of tying a lantern to a horse and walking the beach, thus luring ships into shore for plundering,” according to the 2008 Official Travel Guide to the Outer Banks.
We decided to jump back into the car and head down to the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, which turned out to be almost 50 miles. We visited the lighthouse, the “tallest brick beacon” in the world, at 208 feet. Unfortunately, Charlie wasn’t very impressed.
We drove back up north across Roanoke Island and took a more northerly route back home through the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. We passed several red wolf and black bear crossings and warning signs but saw neither hide nor hair of any critters, including alligators, except for the dead possums along the road.
So nearly 400 miles and nine hours later we returned to the rv park to rustle up some dinner. It was a very long day but we split the driving. Jeff drove about 2/3rds and I drove the last 1/3rd or so. However, in my defense, I had to drive through the thunderstorm and cloudburst and deep water on the roadway. In fact, I could barely see three stripes ahead of me on the highway for a time. But then in Jeff’s defense he had to drive across most of the long bridges and through the heavy winds and blowing sand. What a fun day!!
The Outer Banks are a series of barrier islands that stretch about 130 miles from the border with Virginia south. There appear to be lots of beaches and sand dunes and plenty of huge houses that people rent for their vacations. People from DC often come down to the Outer Banks to vacation. But honestly, the Florida Keys it ain’t. Especially not in April. Barely anything was open. If this had been a Saturday at Seaside or Cannon Beach or Lincoln City in Oregon, there undoubtedly would have been plenty of people. And it wasn’t even raining while we were there, just very windy. Of course most sensible people probably wouldn’t drive as far as we did for just a day or two, and the major population areas are at least that far away, and then some.
Still the countryside was beautiful. Much of it is very flat farmland but there were plenty of dogwoods, azaleas, and what looked like wild wisteria blooming everywhere. Along the freeways in many places there are huge fields of California poppies and other wildflowers. Very, very pretty. I will try to get a photo of some of these wildflowers and post in a future blog.
TravelinLady
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