Sunday, September 29, 2013

OBX (Our Big Xcursion)

Derrick and I just got back from a fun little mini-vacation in the Outer Banks. Travis and Claire got married on Saturday night and we decided to take a half day from work on Friday and spend a little longer time in the area. I'll do a separate post about the wedding. Spoiler Alert: It was awesome and the bartender was very liberal!

When we got there we checked into our hotel and headed out to the best reviewed putt putt course in the area Lost Treasure Island. (Woot Woot for 3 1/2 stars!) It was a close game. I was even winning at one point. And then I got a 6 on the 15th hole and a 6 on the 16th hole. There is no recovering from a six when you're playing mini golf.


Check out this sweet lost treasure trolley we took to the start of our course!



The evidence of my loss :( There was a high score board and you had to get 36 or under to get on it. That would be crazy! Derrick didn't get any 4's and he was still 8 strokes off the high score board.


Being at the beach is the only time I regret my non-seafood taste buds. It seems like there are always tons of seafood restaurants that would be awesome to check out but I just really don't have a taste for fish. Derrick doesn't either. That's why we were excited to see a local BBQ place right across from out hotel that got great reviews on Yelp. It was called High Cotton and turned out to be delicious and ready in about 5 minutes!  Plus it has crinkle fries. I LOVE french fries, especially thick cut crinkle or steak fries and their fries were delicious!


Plus we really hit it off with the server and he gave us free Moon Pies when we left! At least that's the story I'm going with. There wasn't a price on the Moon Pies but I was fully expecting to pay for them. Derrick didn't even want one and said so but the guy told him he would want one later and gave them both to us for free. Maybe he does that for everyone and Moon Pies are like mints that are given away for free at other restaurants.

Oh my gosh that would be awesome. I think I'll be buying a box of Moon Pies tomorrow.

And Derrick did want his later that night:


The next morning we tried another local place. That was my rule this weekend. Don't eat anything we can get in Raleigh...except Roo cups of course. Neighboring High Cotton was a Duck Donuts. There is a city named Duck about 15 minutes down the road from Kitty Hawk and we're pretty positive that's where the first Duck Donuts is. They make the donuts in front of you. Not Krispy Kreme style though. It's a much smaller process at Duck Donuts and you feel really lucky to get one of the donuts because there machine only pops out about 4 donuts a minute. They are really cakey and then the staff individually dips your donut into it's topping and throw the sprinkles on. It was very cool and the icing was extremely gooey. They serve their donuts with a wet-nap.

Hot off the press:


Sometimes I feel like we need to hire a photographer to follow us around so we don't end up with awkward individual pictures like this. #firstworldproblems


After Duck Donuts we had the rest of the morning and early afternoon to kill before the wedding so we headed about 20 miles down the coast to Currituck County. It was only 20 miles but it took about 40 minutes to get there. Our final destination was the Currituck Lighthouse but I asked Derrick to catch a couple pictures of the beach houses on our way. The following is evidence that not everybody is cut out to market houses:





Stick to your day job honey. I'll photograph the houses.

After the rumble strip reminded me too many times to look at the road and not the houses and shops we arrived at the Currituck Lighthouse, or as I like to call it the Wolfpack Lighthouse. Check out those beautiful bricks!


 Inside the lighthouse there was a wishing well. Except no water. It was probably started by the lighthouse staff to get extra tips. We obliged with seven cents of our own. Live it up!


Climbing the lighthouse was scary! I've gotten used to my harness when rock climbing and I was really missing it on our climb up. It was 214 stairs and 153 feet. The stairs did not seem sturdy enough and it didn't help that at each level they pointed out that the walls were getting thinner. Derrick risked his life for this photo. Worth it.


The top was crazy windy! Had to take my sunglasses off and hold them windy and had to be careful not to be blown of the edge windy. But the view was fantastic!


We traded with another couple to get this shot. They took almost a million and this was the only one without hair blowing in my face. Look at how tightly I'm gripping that bag! It was necessary to keep our Currituck Lighthouse Christmas ornament from flying off into the ocean.


Derrick handled the stairs with confidence. I was slightly more afraid.



Geeze...this post is getting long. I'll wrap it up. After the lighthouse we took a quick nature walk down a boardwalk. We were promised all sorts of nature including giant water rats, Cottonmouth Snakes, and foxes. So we set off with high hopes down this board walk.


And we found this grasshopper! It was the only nature we saw and it scared the bejeebers out of me because Derrick fake screamed and pushed me toward it. Not to mention I then thought those brown weeds behind it was a tarantula coming up to kill it. I probably wasn't ready for a giant water rat.


I worked really hard for this picture. And then I moved while taking it so Derrick is cradling the lighthouse in a pile of trees. Bummer....this was going to be a good one.


Since Derrick's failed, I tried the leaning picture. Worked out about just as well. Plus, now that I'm looking at this picture I'm not leaning at all! In fact, I'm probably leaning away from it......we'll work on these types of pictures for you.


We did some other touristy shopping and eating that afternoon but this post has gotten really long and I've probably lost most of you by now and am just talking to myself so I'll end it here. Look out for the post to come about the wedding. That's the real fun part of the weekend!




1 comment:

  1. Not too long at all....I enjoyed reading it. Sounds like a fun weekend!!!

    ReplyDelete