The Day We Saw Nothing

Allison and I set out on a Duck Beach adventure to see what we could see.

We tried to find dunes, but there was a lightning warning in effect and the park ranger told us that “if we wanted to still go, we should stay near things taller than us.” Dunes: fail.

We thought we’d go to historic Roanoke Island. It took a very long time to get there and, when we finally arrived, all we found was a small grassy field with dirt mounds forming a fort-like enclosure and a lot of mosquitoes. Nary a period explorer or blacksmith demonstration to be found despite the fact that our Economic Recovery Act monies were hard at work to rebuild a visitors center. Apparently they wanted us to use our imagination. Or something. Roanoke: fail.

We then headed for Cape Hatteras. But it was too far away. Cape Hattaras: fail.

Instead we found a washed out Coast Guard station, a beach littered with cigarette butts and a local dive where we were heckled both going in and out by “the locals” (“no, sir – I probably won’t go dancing with you tonight, but thank you for the invitation, oh, and please don’t follow us. Seriously, you are scary. And drunk. And gross. And frankly, you don’t look like you could dance very well anyhow…”). Local diner: fail. Weird hill-billy locals: fail.

We finally turned our sights homeward – but along the way we noticed a pull-off for a small wildlife park. We found turtles. Huge hungry hungry hippo like turtles that swarmed the bridge as stopped above as if following some sort of cue. We didn’t have any food for them but we did have lots of spit. Turns out turtles are like to eat spit. Finally, something to see – turtles eating our spit. Turtles: for sure a win.

After amusing ourselves for 15 mins spitting at the turtles and feeling very ‘top of the food chain’, we set out to walk the small circle pathway. Where we were promptly nearly eaten alive by horseflies where we found ourselves at the bottom of the food chain and, literally, running for the car. How quickly the mighty fall – trail: fail. Horseflies: big fail.

And this is when we finally found something to see. Something even better than spit-eating turtles that made all the adventuring worth it – the Brew-Thru. Bre-thru? a total win that somehow averaged out the day and made it a win.