Immediately after completing our two short trips to the mountains in May and June we got to work on planning visits to the beach. As noted in my prior post, we are following the wisdom of the local crowds, since mountain and beach trips are summer staples in this area. We checked out two different beach locations to compare the drive times and amenities in an effort to strike the right balance.
Exploring Carolina Beach
Our closest beaches, based on driving time, are the shores near Wilmington, North Carolina, including Wrightsville Beach and Carolina Beach. Discovering that there is a relatively new Hampton Inn located directly on the oceanfront in Carolina Beach, plus knowing that we had a certificate for a free night at a Hilton property, made the decision easy. Given the relatively short drive time of 3 hours 40 minutes on I-40, we opted for a brief two-night stay in late July as an introduction to the area.
When there is a botanical garden in the vicinity we will visit, so our first stop in Wilmington was at Airlie Gardens. This former private estate boasts a state champion live oak (the Airlie Oak) along with plenty of other impressive trees creating a pleasant canopy of shade, linked together by graceful lawns bordered by colorful plantings. The garden also features a large freshwater pond that attracts elegant wading birds, a butterfly house, and numerous installations of outdoor artwork and fountains. With a heat dome giving us “feels like” temperatures over 100 degrees, we were happy that the gardens were relatively small and offered lots of shade.
That high heat also affected our time at the beach. We were up for the breakfast buffet by 6:30 and out taking beach walks by 7 am, so that we could spend the brutal middle of the day relaxing in the A/C. We tried a few local restaurants, and enjoyed our outings to The Sandspur (repellant name, delicious fish tacos) and Island Burgers & Bites (rated by Yelp users as the best cheeseburger in North Carolina in 2022, despite being located inside a gas station at the time). Overall, though, the area had too much of a carnival atmosphere for our liking. By that I mean there is literally a carnival, complete with rides, games, and greasy food, located just inland from the municipal boardwalk. We’re not generally looking for Coney Island to be a part of our beach experience, and if we visited the area in the future we would stick to the less-developed residential areas away from the commercial center.
Return to the Outer Banks
Our fourth and final summer getaway was a return to Kill Devil Hills, which we liked last October despite the chilly temperatures. It turns out that mid-September is nearly perfect: crowds are greatly reduced post-Labor Day, but air temperatures of 75 degrees and the persistent wind that brought the Wright brothers to the area combined to make a very pleasant beach experience. The main potential drawback for that time frame is hurricanes, but the worst weather we encountered was overcast skies and occasional sprinkles of rain.
Like most beach towns, the Nag’s Head area has plenty of touristy trappings: an outlet mall, T-shirt shops on every corner, and buildings painted colors that would earn public nuisance citations in most other places. But it also offers access to a large number of natural areas, including the Currituck National Wildlife Refuge to the north, Kitty Hawk Woods Coastal Reserve on the sound side, and Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge and Cape Hatteras National Seashore to the south. Kill Devil Hills is well-supplied with good grocery stores (Publix, Harris Teeter, and Fresh Market), plenty of appealing restaurant options, and a wide variety of accommodations. We snagged a stylish and well-located one-bedroom condo on Airbnb (Sundune Surf) for a four-night stay. For the most part we spent our time taking morning beach walks, checking out nearby restaurants for lunch, relaxing on the two balconies at the condo, and eating in for dinner. Food highlights included crab cake sandwich (Ken) and fish tacos (me) at Bonzer Shack, crab cake sandwich (Ken) and fish tacos (me) at Food Dudes Kitchen, and fish sandwich (Ken) and fish tacos (me) at NC Coast Grill & Bar. This might seem just a tiny bit repetitive, but we love eating fresh-caught seafood and all the meals were different and delicious.
One day we drove about an hour north to Corolla, on the edge of the Currituck NWR, and checked out several components of the Historic Corolla Park. The oldest structure is the Currituck Beach Light, which dates to 1875 and is distinguished by its unpainted brick exterior. The park is also home to the Whalehead Club, a 1925 vacation home used by wealthy northerners while visiting the area for waterfowl hunting. We didn’t tour the interiors of these structures but instead spent time at the two free museums, the Outer Banks Center for Wildlife Education and the Currituck Maritime Museum. These museums did a nice job of explaining how the shallow waters of the Currituck Sound made it a key stop for migrating waterfowl along the Atlantic Flyway, while also spurring development of unique types of boats suited for the shallows. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the local economy was dominated by waterfowl hunting. “Market” hunters were residents who bagged huge numbers of birds for shipment to cities like Philadelphia, while hunt clubs bought up extensive marsh lands along the sound, creating seasonal destinations for wealthy men and employing locals as guides, private game wardens, and servants. The exhibits illustrate how overhunting soon led to drastic population declines, which in turn led to federal interventions like the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 and the 1929 Migratory Bird Conservation Act.
We are practically connoisseurs of maritime museums at this point, having previously visited similar ones in places like Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore along Lake Michigan, the Bayfield Maritime Museum overlooking Lake Superior, and the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria, Oregon. We thought the exhibits on topics ranging from boat-building to lighthouse signalling were well done, but I was amused when I imagined the sales pitch of the museum designers: “Are you interested in hunting decoys? No? Well, what if I told you we will have an entire room full of decoys? Are you interested in outboard motors? No? Well, what if I told you that we will create a sculptural vertical display of two dozen different outboard motors?” Clearly the motto here is “more is more.” The weird thing is that it worked! One or two carved wooden ducks are not that compelling to me. But seeing over a hundred examples, some dating back a century, and made by a number of different local carvers with recognizably unique styles, was actually pretty cool. We finished up our day trip north by stopping in the small town of Duck (I’ll bet you can guess how it got its name) to wander along the extensive (1 mile +) public boardwalk along the edge of the Currituck Sound.
After sampling the local beach-and-mountains custom this summer, we understand why it’s such a long-standing tradition and one that we will likely adopt. One thing we would change for the future would be a slight modification of the order: beach in May before Memorial Day and in September after Labor Day, with mountain visits in between.
Sports-a-palooza
Even with local university teams off for the summer, we found plenty of ways to get live sports in front of our eyeballs this summer. We particularly love unique or unusual sporting events, especially in formats that are new to us. Back in late May we spent a fun morning watching urban bike racing at the annual Gears & Guitars event. In the portion we watched, riders in the criterium race were executing high speed turns on a course consisting of loop around 4 city blocks, while a race judge was pulling out the laggards who had been lapped. At the same time, people with mechanical trouble were taking “grace” loops off in a designated pit area and receiving signals to re-enter the race from the same race judge. The distance of the race is a certain number of laps, but that number is not known to the competitors in advance — the race judge makes an assessment based on the race speeds as to when there will be 10 laps remaining and then a large board displays a lap countdown. All the activity was chaotic, confusing, and utterly compelling.
In August we attended the Winston-Salem Open tennis tournament, a pro tournament for men that’s considered a tune-up for the U.S. Open. We watched an afternoon session on a random Tuesday, selecting the date solely based on forecasts for slightly cooler temperatures, and had the pleasure of seeing an excellent main court match in relatively pleasant conditions. The underdog winner of that randomly-selected match went on to win the entire tournament, reinforcing our belief that we can unwittingly serve as lucky charms for other people.
Throughout the summer we had maintained an intention to attend a game at our local minor-league baseball stadium, but we kept getting deterred by high temperatures and the prospect of roasting at the game. Our procrastination paid off nicely, since we finally made it to a Winston-Salem Dash game the week after Labor Day. The late date meant that we had perfect temperatures for sitting outdoors (lower 70s with low humidity), and with lagging demand late in the season we snagged amazing seats (4th row behind home plate) for $15 each. Add in the $1 hot dogs and $2 draft beer specials and they were practically paying us to be there. Plus our game attendance coincided with friends visiting town, and it was a perfect spot to spend an evening chatting in between root-root-rooting for the home team.
Finally, when the students returned to town we took advantage of the resumption of college sports by attending a game featuring our top-10-ranked men’s soccer team. Another total steal at $15 per ticket for excellent seats, I particularly enjoyed seeing fans of all ages turning out for the game. Young kids exhausted themselves racing back and forth along the walkway in front of the bleacher seating, while behind us the conversation of several older community members made it obvious that they are long-time season ticket holders. An action-packed game that ended as a 4-0 rout by the home team perfectly punctuated our sports-filled summer.
And with that we have already rocketed into fall, complete with gaggles of students in town, a return to volunteer work on campus for me, and significantly cooler morning temperatures. It’s time to start planning our strategy for leaf-looking!
