2017-07-15

Surviving the Outer Banks: Day Seven

     Today started with a plan to get up at 5 a.m. to see the sunrise on the beach. This is how this scenario actually went:
     *Valeri (me) wakes Matthew at 5 a.m.*
     *Matthew whines*
     "Nooooo. I don't want to."
     *Valeri rolls her eyes and starts to get up*
     *She looks outside and sees it's still lightning*
     *Decides: can't watch the sunrise in the rain or a lightning storm*
     *Crawls back into bed*


     So watching the sunrise didn't go so well ... or at all. We really should've planned it for a morning earlier in the week, because now all we have is Sunday morning to catch it. Le sigh.
     After sleeping for a few more hours, I once again tried to wake Matthew, but ended up having to leave him to his slumber. Life's so hard while on vacation.
     I would like to point out that Matthew is normally the one who has to push me to get out of bed in the morning while on vacation. So this goes to show how much a beach vacation has made him a lazy bum.


     Okay, so on to the good stuff.
     Since we were expecting rain all day, we'd moved most of our stuff (kayaking, Jockey's Ridge State Park, etc) to a different day ... as you can tell if you've read our past blogs.:) However, due to moving everything, that didn't leave us with a lot planned for today.
     So it was kind of a fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants type day, and if you know us at all, you'll know we don't normally do that. Yea, we might have a few hours where we wander around or explore, but not an entire day.
     Well, for those of you who've made fun of us in the past for our itineraries, the day we had was made for you.


     We started with a walk to the beach and along the surf. It was a nice 76 degrees when we left the house, which is absolutely glorious compared to the heat we've had while in the Outer Banks. As we walked for a couple hours and made a couple new friends (see below), we also picked up some shells and took a couple photos.



A tiny crab Matthew spotted

A good pup that posed for the photo


     Once the temps started to rise, we headed back to the house to cool down and think about lunch.
     We ended up eating at a place called Ladles. We were a little leery at first about eating at a soup and warm sandwiches shop, which doesn't usually go well with 90 degrees/85% humidity. However, we figure they had air conditioning, so it was worth a shot.
     We were glad we went because it was delicious. I had a Grilled Cheese with Chicken Noodle and Matthew had a Turkey Rueben with Greek Lemon Chicken soup. So yummy.


Ladles in 90-degree weather ... *grabby hands*


     After having our hot lunches, we stepped back into the 1,000-degree heat to head to Manteo. It was around 1 p.m. by this point and the weather said rain was suppose to hit around 3 p.m., so we figured we'd just visit the aquarium while it rained.
     Well, the weather apps and local stations fooled us because there was no rain. Fibbers.
     However, we enjoyed the aquarium. We've tried to take in the aquarium in each city we visit; with the exception of San Francisco. We like to see what each offers and so far the only one that's disappointed us was London (you can read about that in our London blogs if you haven't already).
     I do believe this was the first aquarium that showed us sea turtles, which Matthew loved. There were so many turtles. Also, it was the first one that showed us crocodiles, which I enjoyed. As long as they can't get to me, I enjoy watching them.


Matthew's turtles



The almighty crocodile


     So as I said, Matthew's favorite part was the turtles. My favorite was the sting rays. They had them where you could reach into the water and touch them while they swam around. They're just so slimy it made me giggle like a child every time I touched one. We only got video of that, so you can find those on our PhotoStream.


     Okay, on to our favorite part of the day.
     As we were pulling out of the aquarium, Matthew spotted the airport and asked if we could go back and look at some of the planes.
     While pulling up to the airport he saw a sign for $15 plane rides. It seemed too good to be true, but after confirming it, we knew we couldn't pass up a flight over the Outer Banks.


With Andy in the air


     So Andy, our pilot, flew us over the OBX for about 15 minutes. The plane was a Cessna 170, which seats two in the front and two in the back. I gave Matty the front since they told him whoever was up there would get to fly the plane for a little bit and I didn't really have that kind of nerve.


Matthew flying the plane



     It was awesome to see the OBX from the sky. We flew over Jockey's Ridge State Park, the Wright Brother's Memorial Museum, part of the Atlantic, etc. Andy also pointed out a ship wreck just off one of the beaches we've been to frequently ... blew my mind.
     We took quite a bit of video/photos while up there, but I'm going to only include a few photos here. You can watch our video montage at the end of the trip to see some of the videos.


Andy said we chose a good time to come since the incoming rain (shown behind us) made us the last flight.

The Pearons with the Cessna 170


     After landing, we headed back to the house to relax and have our last family dinner in the OBX.
     It was Mom and Dad's night, so that meant tacos. Yum! It's hard to beat tacos in my mind.


Family Night in the OBX
     After dinner, which included finally mastering a family selfie ... it's way too difficult to fit eight people into a selfie and for everyone's faces to be showing. To take it up a notch, trying to take an eight-person selfie with the Instax Camera I have is even harder. However, we finally did it. We've failed at doing this two other times in the past four months, but as they say, third time's a charm.
     I'll be posting a snap of that photo on my Facebook and Instagram tomorrow, along with other Instax photos I've taken throughout the week.


     Until then ...


"At the beach, life is different ... time doesn't move hour to hour,
but mood to moment."
-Anonymous

     More photos can be found by clicking the PhotoStream icon here.

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