Hatteras Island, North Carolina

North Carolina's 'Outer Banks' is a narrow strip of land, off the coast, in the water. Basically, it's a series of islands (the biggest being Hatteras), tied together with a patchwork of bridges and ferries. The most developed of its communities are Nag's Head, Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hill, which run one after another in a series of commercial, kitschy stores and restaurants, at the Northern part of the banks. Kitty Hawk, you might know, is where the Wright brothers first flew their flying machine in the early 1900s. On Wednesday, we listened to a ranger talk at the Wright Brothers Memorial before hiking up to the top. Afterward, we stopped at Jockey Ridge Stage Park, where a giant sand dune and high winds make it a popular kite launch. If, however, you can't get your kite line untangled, it's also fun to just race down the dune.

We were repeatedly warned about the heat before setting out on our trip. Admittedly, the afternoons are blazing hot and beaches offer little shade, so today we cooled off at a coffee house in Nag's Head before coming back for a swim across the dunes from our campsite. There were at least half a dozen stupid jelly fish in the water. Lucky for us, an all-American dad came along and started scooping them with a garden hoe and then dumping them unceremoniously into a shallow grave in the sand. "The kids will step on 'em," he explained. Didn't have to convince me!

The beach at Oregon Inlet is…interesting. People are allowed to drive their big old trucks onto the beach, so the shore is dotted with giant halftones on pumped up chassis. We had an interesting chat with our neighbour campers (a couple from France who are biking from Charleston to NYC) about the 'freedom' to drive trucks on beaches and how that relates to being American.

The next morning, we stopped at Pea Island Wildlife Refuge on our way to Ocracoke. It was early with clear light and a little breeze and we walked the path around the water and saw a white heron fishing for breakfast, purple martins, brown pelicans, plovers, a couple dozen land turtles and two giant sea turtles. Those last guys were prehistorically huge with pointy noses and spotted skin. That reminded us both that we I forgot to mention our sighting of two horseshoe crab shells/carcasses on Assateague Island. If you've never seen one, do a Google Image search. Pretty wild looking dudes!