"Elevated Housing Is The Norm" - Time Out #137

It's a known fact, our great country is as diverse geographically as any place on planet earth.

We have it all as far as different types of physical features are concerned, with our incredible landscapes from coast to coast.

One of our most unusual places is almost straight east of Our Town, but all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. It is a land of stilts; houses on stilts in every direction for miles.

North Carolina's famed Outer Banks.

My bride, Debbie, and I ventured there a few years back, flying to the Tar Heel state capital city, Raleigh. We then rented a car to drive to our residence for a week, Duck, NC, located at the north end of the Outer Banks (OB). The OB consist of a string of narrow islands and peninsulas that lie between the potentially hazardous North Atlantic Ocean to the east and various sounds (large bodies of salt water) to the west, along 125 miles of North Carolina's northern coastline. They are really a bizarre natural feature, and it is just as bizarre that people actually live on these barren, wind-swept, barrier islands. Because of their strange location and long history of shipwrecks, hurricane problems, distinctive culture, and other oddities. the OB "called" me to visit them; so, we did!!!

We located our 1-bedroom place in Duck without any problems, since Duck has only a permanent population of a few over 500 folks. One of our first observations while driving east across the US Highway 64 causeway onto historic Roanoke Island, were the local dune buggy-like vehicles everywhere. Oddly, on the front bumper area on most of these oversize vehicles, were located large fishing pole racks, holding several long rods and reels. After the "big" town of Manteo (population 1,434), highway 64 joins up with NC Highway 12, and it runs most of the entire north/south length of the OB. The southern terminus of NC 12 is Ocracoke, and the northern terminus is Corolla. Since Manteo is centrally-located, the OB Visitors Bureau and several other major attractions are located around Manteo.

After we were checked-in to our Duck home-base dwelling, we ventured back out to see the OB north end sites. The entire OB literally have hundreds of vacation properties, all on huge 10-15' stilts, that elevate these structures from their sandy bases to various heights, and, possibly, some degree of safety from the salt water. However, they all look like "sitting ducks", at the total mercy of the occasional violent ocean conditions. All the structures are certainly unusual sights for anyone not used to it, i.e, my bride and me!

Since I am such a rabid fan of the National Park Service (NPS) and American history, the first major attraction we visited during in our week-long stay was touring the Wright Brothers National Memorial. It is located on US Highway 158 bypass, milepost 7.5 in Kill Devil Hills. This town actually has a permanent population of 6,683 people, and has many overnight lodging choices near the historic NPS memorial, and, is not far from Duck.

The memorial itself is composed of 431 acres, and was dedicated in 1932 to Orville and Wilbur Wright "in commemoration of the conquest of air". The first sustained flights by a heavier-than-air powered machine were made there by them on December 17. 1903. The memorial area contains a nice visitor center. There are also reproduction displays of their 1902 glider and 1903 flyer, along with reproductions of their living quarters and hangar buildings. The outside grounds have markers showing the distances traveled during their first 4 flights, almost 115 years ago.

Another NPS location we toured later during our stay was the Fort Raleigh National Historical Site on Roanoke Island, about 3 miles north of Manteo. In 1585, years before the Jamestown colony establishment north in Virginia, a group of men. under the direction of Sir Walter Raleigh, attempted to establish the first English settlement here. It was unsuccessful, but in 1587, Raleigh attempted another settlement here, this one included women and children. It, too, was unsuccessful, and resulted in the "Lost Colony" legend of today, since it has never been proven just what happened to that second group of people. The NPS has an informative visitor center on location, along with ranger-led interpretive programs in the summer. The beautiful Elizabethan Gardens are there, too, constructed as a memorial to the first English colonists who arrived there almost 450 years earlier.

In this same general area are the Roanoke Island Festival Park, the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island, the Island Farm,

and "The Lost Colony", a live, early-evening summer drama production about the 1587 missing settlement.

A great deal of the overall appeal of the entire OB area is the shear wild beauty and vast expanses of sand and water. On one occasion, my bride and I witnessed our first waterspout (literally a small tornado over open water) one afternoon as we gazed across the huge Pamlico Sound toward the NC mainland. Along Cape Hatteras National Seashore, we spent some time at the famous Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, 208' tall and constructed in 1870. It is the tallest such brick-built structure in our entire country, and is truly an awesome sight!

Nearby in small (population 261) Rodanthe, we toured the historic Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station & Museum. This forerunner organization of the U.S. Coast Guard, was commissioned in 1874, to rescue shipwreck victims from the off-shore "Graveyard of the Atlantic", an extremely treacherous area the ocean. In the summer, tourists may view scheduled life-saving reenactments as they happened almost 150 years ago.

Great seafood, lots of people-watching, wildlife viewing, and just thoroughly observing Mother Nature in all her glory, filled the remainder of our vacationing week in this very unusual location.

Now, every time I read or hear of something happening on America's Outer Banks, I smile, and my mind's eye knows, "I've been there!" You should experience it, too!!