YES !!! This post has been in the draft bin since 08/2018 !!!
For the third time in the past five years, the Bacon family has gone to the Outer Banks for our vacation. As we did the previous year, we stayed the night in Beckley, WV for the night and split the drive into two days. As much as I hate having to add 2 days and a couple of hundred dollars to the trip, I just can’t do this non-stop!
This was our first day there and we arrived late afternoon.
After a quick trip to the beach on our first day, we headed south to hit some shops.
One of my daughter’s favorite stops.
“Buxton Village Books” in of course Buxton, NC.
A nice, small little bookstore.
Kind of a nice change from the big box retailers.
I could never get tired of beach days like this !
Leaving Hatteras on the ferry to go to Ocracoke Island. It’s about an hour ride and we took a chance with the weather.
And what a chance it was. It rained and rained and rained.
Instead of parking and walking about, we had to drive station to station.
We did have a fine lunch (more on food later).
I really shouldn’t complain about weather on vacations because not every day should be expected to be bright and sunny.
And you know there’s a big BUT coming here !!!
The above video shows how it rained for literally THREE STRAIGHT DAYS !
It was a warm rain and there was one day when I went to the beach in the rain and stood waist deep in the surf with my sieve looking for shells and glass and the such.
WOW !!!!!
That’s what “early morning” should look like !! The monsoons finally ended.
The Bacon Sand Fortress of the beach.
Unfortunately, we built it too high above the tide range and it was not swallowed by the sea before we left.
Little girl happy to be on the beach.
Ahhhhhh, now that’s a nice sunset over the Pamlico Sound.
Little girl getting some more summer reading in.
She gets bored with the beach after a couple of days.
We did not go out on the Avon Pier last year so we thought we would this time. Just $1.00 !!!
“I’d pay a dollar for that !”
Long view of the Avon Pier. I can’t imagine standing out there all day fishing, but people do.
July 27 was our last night and as I was going in and out packing the car, I saw that the moon was real funky. As it turned out, it was a blood moon and a total lunar eclipse. Pretty cool.
Beckley, West Virginia is about the half way point for driving. In Beckley is “Tamarack”
Not really sure how to describe the place, but it has a lot of hand crafted art and the such. A nice place to stop and look through. (The kind of place chicks like to look around)
FOOD:
We arrived at our condo about 4 pm and unpacked the car. We then made a trip to the Food Lion and bought most of our food for the week including a very nice frozen pizza for dinner.
This year I decided to spend just cash while on our trip and brought about $700 with me.
I play an online “game” called “Wheresgeorge.com” and I typically only spend “G” series one dollar bills and five dollar bills. Got a few good hits from this trip.
As far as food and eating this year, it was quite different. Previously, we would eat out perhaps only once since we were usually too tired from being on the beach all day and way too tired to get cleaned up! But since it literally rained for 3 days, we ended up eating out quite a bit and “WOW” did the food bills run up quickly.
BoJangles:
We ate at Bojangles in Beckely, WV after a very full day of driving.
All I can say about the fried chicken at Bojangles is, “GOD DAMN !!”
Great,great,great fried food for a chain restaurant. And I cannot forget about the biscuit. Another food masterpiece for a chain.
Open Water Grill was literally a stone’s throw from the condo. Now, the original website I found for OWG did not have a menu on it and when I googled around, I found a Yellow Pages site that had the menu. My daughter was excited that there was BBQ brisket on the menu. (Our last vacation last year was to the Wisconsin Dells and we had dinner at Paul Bunyan’s and we had the BBQ brisket and she was quite taken with it.) Well, turns out that menu was from 2015 and there was NO BRISKET !!!!
My daughter ended up getting chicken tenders and hush puppies. They were really good she said. I got the fish ‘n chips. They are made with the catch of the day and I’m not sure what it was, but it was very good. The crust was kind of a combination of breading and batter. When cut with a fork, it didn’t all crumble and fall off. Came with an unusual spicy kale slaw that was good.
This was an expensive dinner. With tip it was about $70. That’s how the food bill adds up quickly !
We took a rainy day trip to Ocracoke and we already had planned not to eat at Howard’s Pub. Not that there was anything wrong with eating there, but we felt like “been there, done that” and wanted to go somewhere else. So we did. I ordered an Oyster Po Boy. These oysters were great. Not greasy and not over cooked. A really good sandwich and great onion rings but I have to take some points off for me having to ask the server to bring the remoulade. It’s a Po Boy !!!!!
We stopped here on Thursday after going to the Avon Pier. They had quite an extensive menu of burgers and seafood. I had the fried clams and the were great.
We hit Burger Burger two nights in a row. There was enough interesting food on the menu that I think I could have eaten there everyday. This time I had an outstanding Shrimp Po Boy
Epilogue:
I already know that the 2019 vacation won’t be to the Outer Banks. Most likely just take a quick, local trip.
Bacon Time !!!!!! 