On the advice of a local with a heavy aussie accent (he moved here 4 years ago) we set out for the Oregon Inlet area to search for beach glass on Tuesday.
The Cape Hatteras National Seashore is unsettling to me. It's wild, windblown and extremely narrow--you can see both the Atlantic on one side and the Pamlico Sound on the other. There's no shoulder, in some places water stands across the road (where did THAT come from?)and in other places, the sand must be bulldozed back to allow cars through. It's just that I'm not used to being on such a sliver of shifting, seemingly sinking sand, high dunes on one side, flat marsh on the other. Alone, I might add. I couldn't decide if I hoped I was alone out there or not. It's beautiful and desolate.
It was a relief when we pulled into a local dive in Mirlo Beach called "Hot Tuna", advertising "pub and grub" and ordered up the combo basket: fried flounder, fried shrimp, fried scallops, french fries, cole slaw and hush puppies (Red Lobster does not offer hush puppies anymore. I hate that place now.) It arrived so hot it burned my tongue. Which is the way seafood should arrive at your table. We sat and ate with the local fisherman, marooned at the bar because it was too windy and fuel too expensive to fish.
After stuffing ourselves we turned back homeward and stopped at the Pea Island Visitor's Center. Don't drive by this place. Stop and hike the 1/2 mile Charles Kuralt nature trail.
The Cape Hatteras National Seashore is unsettling to me. It's wild, windblown and extremely narrow--you can see both the Atlantic on one side and the Pamlico Sound on the other. There's no shoulder, in some places water stands across the road (where did THAT come from?)and in other places, the sand must be bulldozed back to allow cars through. It's just that I'm not used to being on such a sliver of shifting, seemingly sinking sand, high dunes on one side, flat marsh on the other. Alone, I might add. I couldn't decide if I hoped I was alone out there or not. It's beautiful and desolate.
It was a relief when we pulled into a local dive in Mirlo Beach called "Hot Tuna", advertising "pub and grub" and ordered up the combo basket: fried flounder, fried shrimp, fried scallops, french fries, cole slaw and hush puppies (Red Lobster does not offer hush puppies anymore. I hate that place now.) It arrived so hot it burned my tongue. Which is the way seafood should arrive at your table. We sat and ate with the local fisherman, marooned at the bar because it was too windy and fuel too expensive to fish.
After stuffing ourselves we turned back homeward and stopped at the Pea Island Visitor's Center. Don't drive by this place. Stop and hike the 1/2 mile Charles Kuralt nature trail.
See live snapping turtles! The snapping turtle's head is as big as the Bear's fist.
The beach is across the road.
Clouds of blue mosquitos find you despite the stiff, cold wind. And a type of pea grows there. It's on a vine and it looks like your garden peas. They feed the snow birds that winter on the island.
No sea glass today. But isn't it good to know the snow birds are eating peas in North Carolina?
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