Journey to the Outer Banks

The charm of the sea...

The next day, Thursday, Day 10, was the first of July. I woke up early. It turned out to be a very pretty day. Donna, Kim and Dianne were charged by Donna's mom to put together a birthday party that evening for everyone born in July. I took them to the Food Lion in Kitty Hawk, and shopped at a little surf shop next door for souvenirs. I liked the businesses on the Outer Banks, like a drive- through liquor store chain called Brew-Thru, and Bob's Grill, which had the slogan, "Eat and Get the Hell Out!"


	We all went back to the beach that afternoon. I got to ride a boogie board! That was fun, waiting for the wave to come, then holding on as the board carried me forward. What a blast! At one point, I saw something floating in the water, clear and ghostly. I thought it might be some plastic sack washed out of some trash bin. And then it moved. I pointed and asked some other swimmers, "Is that what I think it is?" It was. It was a jellyfish-- a big one, too, the size of a basketball. The other swimmers didn't seem very concerned, but I gave it a wide berth. I ate leftover salad for lunch.

On the Outer Banks, the main source of income seems to be rental houses. People build big houses either on the ocean or the sound, and rent them out on a weekly basis all year long.

Local real estate agencies publish books of houses available for weekly rental. Prices go up in the summer, of course. Eventually, the owners make enough money on the houses to pay off the mortgage, and then they can retire and move in. Most of the houses have their own names, christened like ships at sea. Here's some of the houses in the neighborhood where we stayed...


	This one was called Ruby's Treasure. Of all the houses I saw on the Outer Banks, I only saw a couple of garages with doors. Everyone uses carports.
This one was called Ballyhannis, named after a town in Ireland. Given the paint scheme, I suspected an Irish family lived there.
	I think this one was my favorite: The Quarterdeck. I could just imagine the owner strolling the upper decks during a heavy squall, watchman's cap pulled tight over his head, heavy pea coat flapping in the wind...

That afternoon, I took two of the guys shopping for more stuff, then we all went to see "Spider-Man 2." It was action-packed, with lots of the kind of introspection Spider-Man always seemed to have in the comics. The guys were satisfied. It seemed kind of crazy to me, to go all the way to the ocean to see a movie we could've watched when we got back home. As soon as the movie let out, we hurried back to the house for the birthday party. Donna found the silliest fish-shaped cake any of us had ever seen, so they decorated the party in an ocean motif. Specifically, they used my growing seashell collection as table decorations. Everyone had plenty to eat, and we all had a relaxing evening.


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