From Yorktown we headed southeast in Virginia towards the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Our first stop was the Wright Brothers National Memorial at Kitty Hawk. While everyone learns in grade school that Orville and Wilbur Wright were the first to achieve self-powered sustained flight, the park service has done an excellent job preserving the exact location of that historic event. A 40 foot granite pylon sits atop Kill Devil Hill, the large sand dune where the flight originated, as a memorial to the ingenuity and determination of the two aviation pioneers. From the top of the hill you can see the entire path of the flight and get a sense for what it must have been like that day. The museum shows a documentary on early flight that helps put their accomplishments into the context of the time. There was a great race around the world to see who would be the first to achieve sustained flight. What struck me was just how far and fast we have come – less than 70 years after the Wright Brothers successfully piloted their wood and cloth plane for just over 850 feet, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. In a special tribute to the contributions of the Wright Brothers, Armstrong carried a piece of their original glider in his pocket when he stepped onto the lunar surface!
Leaving Kitty Hawk we continued along the Outer Banks to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore and our campground near Rodanthe. Straddling the Atlantic and the Pamlico Sound, Camp Hatteras is a large modern campground with paved sites and full hookups. Even though it was a Saturday night, the campground was less than a quarter full this November evening. The rain had stopped mid afternoon, and since it was getting dark as we approached the campground, we parked quickly and walked to the Atlantic beachfront. We had the 1000 foot campground beach to ourselves, which allowed Rocky to partake in his favorite pastime – running un-tethered in the sand. As he dashed back and forth along the edge of the pounding waves, we soaked our feet in the cool Atlantic waters.
From Yorktown we headed southeast in Virginia towards the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Our first stop was the Wright Brothers National Memorial at Kitty Hawk. While everyone learns in grade school that Orville and Wilbur Wright were the first to achieve self-powered sustained flight, the park service has done an excellent job preserving the exact location of that historic event. A 40 foot granite pylon sits atop Kill Devil Hill, the large sand dune where the flight originated, as a memorial to the ingenuity and determination of the two aviation pioneers. From the top of the hill you can see the entire path of the flight and get a sense for what it must have been like that day. The museum shows a documentary on early flight that helps put their accomplishments into the context of the time. There was a great race around the world to see who would be the first to achieve sustained flight. What struck me was just how far and fast we have come – less than 70 years after the Wright Brothers successfully piloted their wood and cloth plane for just over 850 feet, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. In a special tribute to the contributions of the Wright Brothers, Armstrong carried a piece of their original glider in his pocket when he stepped onto the lunar surface!
Leaving Kitty Hawk we continued along the Outer Banks to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore and our campground near Rodanthe. Straddling the Atlantic and the Pamlico Sound, Camp Hatteras is a large modern campground with paved sites and full hookups. Even though it was a Saturday night, the campground was less than a quarter full this November evening. The rain had stopped mid afternoon, and since it was getting dark as we approached the campground, we parked quickly and walked to the Atlantic beachfront. We had the 1000 foot campground beach to ourselves, which allowed Rocky to partake in his favorite pastime – running un-tethered in the sand. As he dashed back and forth along the edge of the pounding waves, we soaked our feet in the cool Atlantic waters.
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