Because I’m always late to the party, I honestly didn’t know that OBX stood for Outer Banks until like, ten years ago. I remember asking The Hubs if it was a band or something.
No it is not.
And, as usually happens with anything in life, I’m obsessed. The beach! The history! The food! Restaurants with names like “We Got Your Crabs!” YES! YES YOU DO!!
After surviving the car ride, which is always so much fun because The Rowdy Boys (who are 7 and 9, for those keeping score) like to fight and talk and ask “are we there yet?” nonstop. Literally. I thought for sure my kids would never be the “are we there yet?” but here we are: Younger Child was asking how much longer we had in the car before we even left OUR TOWN. Okay, I’m on a tangent.
After surviving the car ride, The Hubs asked what I wanted to do most. Roanoke Island, that’s what. The Lost Colony.
The Lost Colony is featured in my recent novel, Under the Devil’s Sun. This is the site where, in 1590, the entire colony disappeared. 115 people, just gone. One of the only clues left was the word “Croatoan” carved on a post. To this day, we have no idea what happened to the colonists.
So, of course, ya gal had to go take a look.
Here’s what I found out: not only did the colonists disappear? But so did the location of the colony itself. As in, we have no clue where the site was. There’s been a ton of land erosion since 1590, so it’s assumed that the colony’s site is somewhere out in this water. Did this stop me from scanning tree trunks for scars of Croatoan? No. I was ready to make the Discovery of the Century.
But, since I didn’t, I entertained myself by walking over extremely hot sand and then racing back to the shade; filming a turtle meandering across the trail; and taking selfies beside the remains of Fort Raleigh. I wasn’t actually aware Fort Raleigh existed, up until I was standing right next to it, and apparently it was rebuilt in the 1950s. And when I say that it was rebuilt, what I means is that they dug the ditches back out. This does not sound like a fun task to me.
North Carolina is gloriously warm and awesome, so of course we went to the Wright Brothers Memorial to walk around outside, hike, and take pictures with a blazing hot status of the first flight. Because that’s what you do. Look how excited I am to be hanging out with these dapper gents. That’s an A+ mustache, my dude.
There was so much to do in the OBX. We shopped. We ate. We went to an aquarium and I got to pet a sting ray AND I saw my friend Mark in a movie about the USS Monitor. We ate more food. We rode in our car, on a ferry, out to an island. We saw an awful lot of jellyfish and they were reeeeally close to swimmers. We went to a pretty sweet place called Festival Park, full of living history and lots of hands on exhibits for the Rowdy Boys, and I rubbed elbows with cute knowledgeable Irish and British guys blacksmithing and doing carpentry work. So. Much. Fun.
And, yup, before you ask, I’ll be going back. I’m debating if I want to write a novel about Roanoke Island. Maybe something historical? Maybe more paranormal? Speaking of historical and paranormal, stay tuned…..because Haunt is coming back.
An oh, wow, is it. 😉