The streets behind the hotels are lined with restaurants and souvenir shops. Buffets seem extremely popular; probably to feed the hordes of kids that are no doubt, dragged to the beach in the summer with the family.
We set sail for Kitty Hawk again today, more determined than ever to make it this time. And make it, we did. The first time we could use our National Park Pass.
Indeed, the Wright Brothers had picked out a good spot to learn to fly. The on site museum was being remodeled but there was sufficient information being displayed in a temporary building and we had already seen lots of information at the Smithsonian.
Pressing on, we had to decide how far we could get before "beer time", which is the timeline we generally use to determine a day's trip.
We had initially planned on making it to Asheville, North Carolina, up in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We had, however, consumed enough time at Kitty Hawk that Asheville would have been a little far.
Winston-Salem was chosen as the next destination. Looks like a nice place in its within range. GPS set and on our way, it occurred to me we were leaving the coastal area and I hadn't yet sampled a soft shelled crab.
We took a lunch break at a nice place in Nags Head where I tried my first soft shelled crab. It even came, served with lump crab mayonnaise. Two crabs in one!
Now too late for Winstom-Salem, Raleigh was next. No more stops planned, so a hotel was booked. We arrived around 5:30; today's "beer time".
So, we're cruising down the highway and a drop or two of rain hit the windshield. The rate of increase in drops is very similar to diving into a pool. Before you know it, wipers are having a hard time keeping up. Not to far down the road, it lets up and we're just cruising with the water spray off of the road which eventually drys up.
About the second or third time this happens, an alert was broadcast about some severe storm cells moving through, somewhere, that is pelting down quarter sized hail that they guarantee will damage your vehicle.
We scramble to the maps in an effort to find out that we were, in fact, either in, or heading into the storm. The land is flat enough that we could see huge storm cells on either side of us. If the road curved in the right direction, or the cells moved far enough, fast enough, we could be in for some repairs if we couldn't find a bridge to duck under.
Luck was with us. We ended up between the storm cells as they move past us in the opposite direction.
Tomorrow, Asheville for sure.
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