Home Sweet Home

We arrived home around 8:30 pm this evening after fighting traffic just past Kings Dominion all the way to near Quantico. I hate Northern VA traffic...

We decided to hang out in the Outer Banks for a while today because we wanted to give all of the other beach traffic some time to get on the road ahead of us. The weekly rentals all leave at 10am so we decided to stay until at least noon and then mosey our way up the coast before heading out off the Outer Banks. We had a very nice breakfast at the B&B, but then every breakfast this week has been marvelous. I'm very glad I can eat salad and fresh fruit again because we had different fresh fruit for breakfast every morning. This morning we had something that tasted like cantaloupe, but didn't look like cantaloupe. It was delicious. We also had cinnamon streusel muffins, french toast, and sausages. Yesterday we had little eggs Benedicts in hard shells that were equally as delicious. I'm really going to miss breakfast and the 4pm cookies at the B&B!

We left the B&B around noon to drive up the coast. We stopped at the Pea Island Nature Conservancy to take a peak at the area. It was hot, hot, hot out there but we saw lots of Monarch butterflies and other butterflies, dragonflies, geese, swans, pelicans, and other waterfowl out on the sound. The sign said there could be bears, but we didn't see any and I'm rather glad. I doubt the bears would come anywhere near the walking trail anyway. I did wonder if there were any gators in the water, but I hadn't seen any gators all week so I wasn't worried.

We also stopped at the Bodie Island lighthouse to take pictures and see the lighthouse up close. We couldn't climb the lighthouse stairs to the top, but we were able to go into the base of the lighthouse and glance upwards. The lighthouse is still in operation because of the dangerous shoals off the North Carolina coast. The Outer Banks is also known as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic" because of the large number of shipwrecks that have occurred in the area.

We had an uneventful and no traffic ride home until we hit Virginia. We also ended up driving in the rain after we passed through Tysons Corner, which thankfully is only about 40 minutes from home. We saw some amazing lightning strikes before it started raining. We both think one of the lightning strikes hit the ground somewhere, but we weren't sure.

We're glad to be home, especially since we missed Riley and Shelby. We do miss seeing the Sound from our balcony though! Riley would have loved it down there, but neither place allowed pets. We saw lots of dogs on the beach, including one greedy little guy who really wanted the rest of my sandwich. I gave him the bologna and salami out of my sandwich and he went away, but then he came back later for the bread! We saw an 8 month old Golden Retriever yesterday who really enjoyed playing in the waves until one cracked on his head. After that he got out of the water and wanted nothing to do with the ocean! Mike really enjoyed playing tug-of-war with him. We also saw one beautiful cat roaming around the B&B, but he never got close enough for us to pet him. Oh well, we've got our own at home now who are definitely craving our attention.