Road trip to the North Carolina Outer banks - Part one.

 It’s a dark and stormy morning as we begin. In the last 12 hours, about four and a half inches of rain has fallen, hmm fallen is not the correct word, Battered us. Yes that’s better.  Wind gusts up around 50mph. 

A mere 10 inches from me, on the other side of the double pained window wall, its just down right nasty out there.  Very impressive, a new moon high tide, with an early May Nor’easter. Really brings that ocean right to the back door.

You know those Adirondack type chairs, the heavy wooden ones that are so comfortable?  Just lost one.  Third floor deck was a good launching pad for that puppy…  (got to remember to let the house rental folks know which direction it was last seen going….)

Amazingly, in this weather, right on the ocean, not much has happened, lots of window rattling, and sometimes you feel the house sway the tiniest bit. (its three stories high, reference the above launching pad entry),  Very sturdy, cant image riding out 70 or 100 mile per hour winds right on the water.. no,, not for me…..

Hey, the chair came back,,, think I may lose it, and a few of its friends again though… it is really bad out there!

If a chair goes through this widow, (and its looking more and more likely), it going to ruin my morning….

But I did not sit here with my coffee to tell you about my Friday morning so much,  more to the story of the trip across the country and adventures to date.

The Plan

Andy and I would drive out from Phoenix, across interstate 40, meet up with Grace in Norfolk Virginia, Sunday at Noon, and somewhere in Virginia or North Carolina, meet up with my mom and dad,  then head on out to the outer banks, get the keys to the house and settle in.

The Execution

Sunny warm day in Phoenix,  Said good bye to Toby and Casey (the dogs), explained that it would go dark, light, dark, light at least twenty one times before I got to see them again… Lots of wagging and licking, but mostly deer in head lights looks.  They are not real good on the math parts of the quiz.

Diane and Scott our neighbors across the street are watching them, so, all should be fine.

(thank you so very much Diane and Scott!!)

Early start.  Chores done, swung buy, picked up Andy, and headed to Heber / Overgaard ahead of schedule.

More cabin chores, and visiting with our Heber friends, an evil plot was hatched. (more on that later).

Up early Thursday morning, and on the road not long after sunrise. Making good time, Zero traffic, Zero officers, life is good.  Up the road, make a right in Holbrook, and we are outta here.

Train.   For gods sake,  slow train in intersection. Stops, goes the other direction, slowly, for quite awhile, then it dawns on me…

I don’t know witch direction is forward for this damn train.  It may change directions again…   oh yea,,  5 times, it changed directions,  two other trains on the other tracks went through the intersection during this “process” We have no idea what they were accomplishing, but it took over 35 minutes!

This picture is one of the 3 times we saw the front of the train, but it never cleared the intersection….  We could have slept in another hour…arghhhh.

Wow, 40 east. Whoo hooo

Radar detector – detecting, cruise set, coffee still hot.  La, La, La, (singing to radio)

Hunger sets in

(live storm update)

Running out of towels for under the door, water filling up the room I am sitting in.  ahhhhh, there goes the lid to the webber grill, almost took out the window, gotta go get that…. Don’t need three foot round shrapnel flying around out there….

Damn, that was fun, wet and cold now… more coffee.. be right back….

Ok, where was I?

Oh, Hunger sets in.

Stopped some place in New Mexico for gas and a bite to eat, Taco Bell covers both of those needs….

We pull up, to the building and this is our greeting….

I think the sign above says it all. I can not top that.

But even better,  as we snapped this shot, 3 guys were just walking out, and busted me.  Way to funny, they looked at me, looked at him, and started busting up!  Of course cheesy guy had no clue, looked at us confused, and went back to his crack window cleaning job.*

* no actual cheesy breads were harmed in the making of this story.

 Didn’t take a great deal of pictures coming across 40,  I assume you all know what an interstate looks like.  Uneventful is for the most part,  But I do think I saw the bus that the run away bride was on, somewhere in New Mexico….

There is another story coming out soon, (as yet untitled, which has most of the cross country pictures in it) – remember that evil plot mentioned above…?

We did stay one night in Nashville, now, there is some fun.  Friday night in down town Nashville, - no, I am serious, was a blast, I’d say 15 fine drinking establishments in this one area, all have a band playing, all were good.  I’d say it would take 2 maybe 3 weekends to really “soak up” the downtown experience.  But rain,, boy o’ boy did it rain while down town, kept us from really hitting all the hot spots, hung out in some karaoke type place, (and you know how much I love karaoke!),  some really good singers,, more really really bad singers… but the rain and the cute server kept us there longer than we planned.

Made our escape, only to get to the hotel, to find a wedding party in the hotel lounge… how could we refuse…

Looking and feeling our best Satruday morning, off we go to get near Norfolk Virginia.  Well not really feeling that bad,  just very tired, it ended up being a much later night that we had planned.

Rain, rain, rain across Tennessee, and early in North Carolina…

These are with the wipers running!

Dad called, they had made it to Emporia Virginia.  Minor course correction, and we can be there before dark.

We met up at the Hampton in, had a thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat, went to sleep, and didn’t get up till the next mornin’.

Swung by Norfolk, picked up Gracie, right on time, and headed south.  By the way, radar detectors are illegal in Virginia…

Had to kill some time before we could get the keys to the house, so we went to a fine eating establishment called Dirty Dicks Crabs.  Great place, good spiced shrimp, etc etc.. very yummy.

Killed more time at the Food Lyon (supermarket), stocked up on supplies, and such, now…. Lets get those keys!!!!

What a place, 3 stories high, Kitchen, family, master on top floor, Pool, hot tub, 6 bedrooms,  and about 40 feet from the water.

I don’t have a picture looking at the house yet, and if its still standing after this mini hurricane today, I’ll take one on Sunday, from the beach looking back at the house.

Much eating and enjoying our time exploring the house,  got some Kites and Andy is now hooked on stunt kite flying… 

Island exploring

Lighhouse climbing

Inside pictures

Graces Mom Joined us on Tuesday, and she actually climbed the Cape Hatteras light house with us… 248 steps I think…

                -

Abandoned coast guard building… way cool.  Sand is overrunning it.

Well, that about covers the first week or so of our travels….

Right now I need to scrounge up more towels for under the 3^rd story ocean side door, its gurgling and water is still coming in under it…  not sure if I should be more worried about the rocking of the house, or the water level rising.. not sure just which force of nature is going to win….

Part two, in a few days…  B.G,A,M,D,G'sM.

adding soon to the clan...C,N.