Day 13: Nags Head to Dillon, SC

We woke up this morning and discovered that we’d been given a top floor room with a fantastic view of the beach and the water, AND the hotel offered a decent free breakfast – not bad for half-blind midnight desperation, I must say. Sadly, the water pressure in the shower left MUCH to be desired.

We headed out before 9 a.m., with a reservation on the 3 p.m. ferry leaving Ocracoke (which is a funny name, but not quite as fantastic as Romancoke, which we saw on the drive to Washington yesterday – say it fast!) for Cedar Island, and about 75 miles and one intervening 40-minute ferry ride between us and Ocracoke. Our first concern was, of course, finding decent coffee – you will be shocked, I am sure, to hear that neither Anja nor I considered the free coffee offered by the hotel to be particularly appealing. Luckily (or unluckily, I suppose, if you are a full-time resident of the Outer Banks), the population apparently swells from 30,000 to over 6 million due to tourists, and there is LOTS of coffee to be had. Delicious and nutritious coffee, though they always look extremely aghast when I order more than 2 shots of espresso.

We drove down the Outer Banks to Hatteras, with the windows down and the crazy wind blowing through the car. The Outer Banks are just south of Kitty Hawk, but we unfortunately weren’t able to go up to the Wright Bros museum; however, I can completely understand why you might pick that location to try to make something fly. My car almost took off, I swear!

Apparently, the main pull-off between Avon and Buxton (both just north of Hatteras) is called Canadian Hole. We searched high and low for that sign so we could take a picture, but tragically our search was in vain. Apparently, it’s a name used by the locals, but not on signage. Sigh. What a wasted opportunity.

We caught the free ferry (free! Can you imagine? I think the B.C. government needs to get on this!) from Hatteras to Ocracoke, drove some more through gorgeous, windswept, dune-y island, and ended up at the Ocracoke ferry terminal. It’s a pathetic terminal, with only one small official ferry shop, no food, and, worst of all, NO COFFEE!! They were building a couple of large buildings right by the car line-up area, and I can only hope that those will someday soon house overpriced shops and café’s to serve the temporarily captive commuters. Like, before I go back and rent a house for the summer, which Anja and I are now planning.

The ferry from Ocracoke to Cedar island is 2 ½ hours long. We ate watermelon, Anja wrote 60 bazillion postcards (seriously, that girl is a MACHINE!), and I searched in vain for my book.

Once we hit the mainland, we started the 5 hour drive to South of the Border. No, really, this time we were SURE! It rained and thunderstormed almost the entire way, and the amazing lightning shots almost made up for the regular hydroplaning and extremely decreased visibility. Um, I mean it was entirely safe and we in no way drove in dangerous weather or anything.

South of the Border? Was awesome. Lots of things were closed, unfortunately, but it was still super ridiculously hilarious. We bought postcards. Lots and lots of postcards.

Then we made it about 5 miles further down the road and crashed in an EconoLodge for the night.