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Touring North Carolina's Outer Banks,
April 12-19, 2003

My wife, Jeanette, said that she wanted someplace easy and flat for our first extended tour. After thinking about it for a while I came up with the idea of touring some of the boundary islands of the east coast that formed the inter-coastal waterway. The most famous of these are the chain that form Cape Hatteras, "the graveyard of the Atlantic." We had a week's Easter vacation coming up so we decided to make the commitment to go and bought the airline tickets, sealing the deal. The day before we were to travel we packed our bikes in our travel bags, packed the panniers and emptied the milk and veggies out of the refrigerator. We were ready.

Day One -Saturday night/Sunday

We took a red-eye flight out of Sacramento to Atlanta and then changed planes, flying to Norfolk, Virginia. We picked up our rental car, loaded the luggage and were on our way to Kill Devil Hills at about noon Sunday. I had previously tried to find some kind of public transportation to the area but could find no way to get us from the airport in Virginia to anywhere near the islands except rental car. It meant that we would be keeping the car for the week.

The leisurely drive from the airport to Kitty Hawk took about two hours. We felt relaxed and ready for the holiday. Everything had been ticked off our checklist-- what to bring with us, travel insurance, and our itinerary. We felt happy and prepared so we enjoyed our ride down to Kitty Hawk. We stopped at the visitor center on highway 158 at Kill Devil Hills and were presented with two maps of the area, one detailed in the area of Kitty Hawk to Nags Head and the other of the Outer Banks all the way to Cedar Island. The maps were perfect for bicycle travel and would fit nicely in my handlebar bag.

Using the maps, we found our way to Kitty Hawk and the Wright Brother's Memorial. The area was covered in huge puddles and we heard that it had rained buckets for the last week. Some of the puddles were over an acre in size and at least six to eight inches deep. After looking at the memorial we drove through Kill Devil Hills/Nags Head looking at the rows and rows of beach houses. Growth was evident everywhere and the place already seemed congested, even though we were two months early for the summer season. If this area had once been enchanting it had long passed, the unrestrained growth, traffic and newness of the developments suggested large summer crowds, noise and vacation stress.

Since we had the rental car, we drove to the south of the island and looked at what would be part of tomorrow's bike ride, a two and a half mile bridge crossing from Bodie Island to Hatteras Island. I encouraged Jeanette to make the crossing by car, leaving me to cross it by bike. Her stamina was not yet where she would feel confident about the ride. 

Jet lag was beginning to catch up with us. We decided against dinner out and instead went to Food Lion, stocked up on some canned soup, bread and cooked chicken and headed for our room at the John Yancy Inn at the south end of Kill Devil Hills. I unpacked and assembled my bike, we ate dinner and were ready for bed.

Miles traveled (by bike) 0

Day Two - Monday

The temperature was about fifty degrees when I started south along the Virginia Dare Trail, the sea most street in Kill Devil Hills. In addition, a cold wind was blowing on my right side. As I rode between the rows of beach houses along side a small canal filled with water, I was surprised to see a turtle on the far bank. I stopped my bike and tried to get my camera out but the turtle dove in the water long before I was ready to take the picture. This routine was repeated about five more times before I finally found a sluggish creature that didn't mind having his picture taken. About four miles down the trail I found a bike path on the sea side. I rode on the path for a while but found that it was so bumpy and flooded that I did better on the road. The traffic was slight anyway, the principal traffic being contractors building more beach houses.

The Virginia Dare Trail joined the main highway, Hwy 158, and I continued south along the narrow shoulder of the highway until I reached the Bodie Island Lighthouse. Jeanette, in the mean time had decided to find a laundry and wash our travel clothes so they would be fresh for our trip home. When she joined me at the lighthouse she said it took her forever to find the one laundry on the island, something we found incredible given the heavy summer tourist traffic.

The Bodie Island Lighthouse was the first of three lighthouses we would see on our trip. It was an impressive sight and I took a series of pictures of it some of which even included my bike.  A sign guided marsh walk was part of the property and Jeanette and I walked along and looked at the flora and fauna identified by the signs.

I took off on the bike again after agreeing to meet Jeanette at Oregon Inlet, a small boat harbor at the south end of Bodie Island. It was a few minutes to the marina store where a cup of hot coffee hit the spot with the still cold wind blowing. The bridge to Hatteras Island was next. It is a two and a half mile concrete causeway with a small hump at the southern end allowing for boat traffic underneath. The shoulder area for bicycles is pretty narrow, less than two feet of roadway on the edges of the two lane bridge. Jeanette drove across while I rode my bike. The crossing was anti-climatic

The road south has a very narrow shoulder for riding, about 18 inches, for the first few miles but then widens to a four foot strip making it much more comfortable to ride. The sand dunes encroached on the road in places as well as some major puddles left over from the previous week's rain. Jeanette and I met again at the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, about seven miles south of the bridge. The refuge is a major migratory bird sanctuary but is pretty empty this time of year. We did see a pair of snapping turtles as we crossed a bridge on the nature trail. We also saw tons of mosquitoes. They especially liked Jeanette's white skin and swarmed her when she stepped off the path and out of the wind.

Our next destination was Rodanthe, the northernmost town on Hatteras Island. The plan was to park the car at Hatteras Island Resort, our Thursday night lodging, and after assembling Jeanette's bike, continue south on our bikes. Everything was going just fine until I reached the outskirts of town. I got a flat in my rear tire, the first in 1200 miles! I pulled and patched the tube and felt around in the tire to find the cause of the flat. I found a razor sharp fragment of steel shaped similar to a rose thorn. It had worked its way through the Kevlar belt of the Specialized Armadillo tire. The tire foreshadowed what was to be the rest of the day's adventures. 

We made arrangements with the Resort to leave the car and I assembled Jeanette's bike, put on the panniers and Jeanette mounted up. We were off and on our way, umbilical cord cut at last. We rode through the remainder of the town of Rodanthe, through Waves and onto Salvo where we had planned to stay the night. We were booked into the Salvo Inn. We saw the sign on the highway and stopped at the office. No one there. We rode the bumpy dirt road back to the two story hotel. No one there either, guests included. On the way back to the street we stirred up the neighborhood dogs and soon had three small and two large dogs barking at us and running alongside. We went into the bait shop next door and asked if they knew where the owner was. They said they'd call her house for us and after a brief phone call told us that she'd come to the office in less than five minutes.

We met the lady at the office. She was friendly enough and said that she had been lying down after driving quite a distance that day. We were told that we were the only guests that night and therefore would be given the best and newly remodeled room. We asked about dinner and were told that none of the restaurants were open yet, that they were all opening later in the week since this was just the start of the season. After thinking about it, she said that one pizza parlor might be open and she made a call for us. She found that the place was open but it was back in Rodanthe.

We rode our bikes back down the dog-infested, bumpy dirt road to our room. We looked around at what we had paid top dollar for, a relatively small room with a plug in $19 portable heater and no toilet paper in the bathroom. It was furnished with two double beds and one of the mattresses was smooth enough for sleeping. We dumped the panniers, got ready for dinner and rode back out the dog-infested, bumpy dirt road. The owner had already left the office so there was no chance to get a roll of toilet paper.  We decided we would grab a pile of napkins at the pizza parlor.

We rode the four miles to Lisa's Pizza in Rodanthe where I had a cheeseburger and fries and Jeanette had an eggplant parmesan sub. We washed down the food with some beers. The food was good and we were hungry. The waitress told us that they had been open three days and that, up until then, there was no place open in Rodanthe/Waves/Salvo from November until April. Our dinner finished, we rode the four miles back to the bumpy, dirt, dog-infested road to our room, turned on the $19 dollar portable heater and hit the sack. Oh yeah, we did remember to bring a supply of napkins.

Total miles traveled - 48

Days Three and Four - Tuesday/Wednesday    

Days Five and Six - Thursday/Friday

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