Day 023 – Point Harbor, NC > Buxton, NC

It’s finally time to move on from Dawn and Nick’s place. It was great spending time with them. Thanks so much for hosting me.

I stopped at the Wright Brothers National Memorial to see what some fellow bicycle enthusiasts are so famous for. Damn! Those guys did some serious work. They decided to come to Kitty Hawk from Dayton, Ohio because of the strong winds, lack of trees and soft sand to repeatedly crash on (land on). Once there they actually built a small hangar and living quarters (pic) because the tents they used the previous year kept getting blown away.

They built their own wind tunnel (pic) and created tables of lift and drag data for the many wings they modeled.

They figured out how to control the plane in all three axis – up/down, turn left/right and bank left/right – a first.

They designed and built an engine that was both powerful enough and light enough to get the plane into the air.

And they did all of this on their own from money they earned from their bicycle shop – no patron, kick-starter or government grant. I’m very impressed.

Just out of the Memorial parking lot I got my first bird. Some young guy couldn’t figure out how to pass me in a 16 foot lane and so started honking at me and then flipped me off on his way past (not even a good middle finger) and then proceed to pull into a strip mall parking lot a few block after. Gotta love that car driver aggression.

I stopped by stack ’em high Nick and Dawn’s breakfast place to get stuffed on pancakes and grits on my way out of town. It’s got a great vibe, cheerfully decorated and staffed by people that are friendly and attentive. I got the 5 stack of plain pancake with eggs over easy and bacon. I like to insert the eggs between the pancakes cover them in pepper and then pour syrup over the entire thing! Love that sweet and savory flavor. I also got some cheesy grits and probably could of eaten a few more rounds, but wanted to get on the road. I highly suggest anyone that goes to the Outer Banks stop by stack ’em high for breakfast – they are near mile marker 9. They often bring their dog Scout (pic) to the restaurant and he’s awesome. I know I say that about most dogs, but he is really a great dog.

Now that my tank was full it was time to head out to Ocracoke.

An hour into the ride I got my first flat tire. It was on my trailer so I didn’t notice for a while. I thought going 3 mph slower than usual was because of the wind. Once I sorted the tire out  I was back up to 15 mph for a little bit until I hit actual wind and there was a lot of it and it brought me down to 9-10 mph.

I stopped in Avon for lunch at a cute place that had a water view – I’m big on eating at places with a water view and went an extra 10 miles hungry until I found one. I chatted up a couple (pic) at the next table over and ended up sitting with them for my meal. Jake is a cellist for the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and Kelly does marketing for the arts. They were staying at Southern Shores – near Kitty Hawk and decided to take a drive south. Our waiter and budding sci-fi author Chris thought our sociability deserved a free round of drinks – so we all got some extra hard lemonades. It is seriously strong and goes down way, way too easy.

Because of the wind and late start I ended up staying in Buxton, where Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is located. It’s the tallest in the US and in 1999 they moved it 2900 feet so that it wouldn’t get swallowed up by the ocean. That would of been a sight to see.

I stayed at Bay Point campground for the night. The sunset was amazing the stars bountiful and lots of young deer walking around at night checking stuff out and probably eating. I caught a few of them in my headlamp and deer really do freeze. I turned it off so they could go on their way, but it’s nice to see that the phrase, “like a deer in headlights” is an apt description of someone that is frozen with their eyes bugged out.