For summer vacation this year, we

decided on a road trip to North

Carolina.   Our destination: a little

town called Duck, on the Outer

Banks of North Carolina.

As a town, there isn't much to say

about Duck.  It's really just a series

of small shopping centres strung

along the main highway running

through the Outer Banks.  They

offer a mixture of T-shirt shops, real

estate offices and craft shops.  We

didn't spend much time there.

The beach in Duck, though, is

impressive.  It's huge, sandy, and

hot.  We had fun body-surfing and

swimming - the water was

surprisingly warm.  Andrew made

good use of his skim board.

We stayed a few miles north of

Duck at the Sanderling Resort.  It's

a nice spot, with big rooms, lots of

beach and a couple of onsite

restaurants.  The resort also has a

spa, tennis courts, exercise

facilities, an indoor and an outdoor

pool: but we came for the beach

and didn't use any of that stuff.

Each evening after dinner, we

would return to the beach and lie on

beach chairs looking for shooting

stars.  Even though the ambient

light on the Outer Banks is not a

problem (good view of the Milky

Way) and even though we were

there about the same time as the

Perseids meteor shower, we didn't

have much luck in the sky.

But on the shore it was a different

story, after dark the place is lousy

with crabs.  Colin collected a few of

these "ghost" crabs each night.

One morning I took my camera to

the beach for some sunrise shots. 

It's a very pleasant way to start the

day, and a surprising number of

other folks were on the beach, or

on their decks, watching.

One evening, Andrew, Colin and I

took a kayak tour of the Pine Island

Audabon Sanctuary, in the salt

marshes on the Currituck Sound

side of the peninsula.  There were

surprisingly few birds at this time of

year, but we saw an Osprey, and

while passing through a narrow

channel in the marsh grass, came

dangerously close to a Water

Moccasin snake.  Due to the risk of

dunking - I didn't take my camera,

so no snaps of this....you'll have to

take my word.

One thing we found weird about

Duck... the restaurants close early. 

On the first night, we ate at the Red

Sky Cafe.  We arrived at about 8:30

pm, and shortly after the waiter had

taken our order, he turned off the

"OPEN" light in the window.  The

meal wasn't bad, and we even had

a bottle of Liberty School Cabernet

Sauvignon (which we discovered on

another vacation), but we felt like

we were being rushed out so that

the place could be closed.

A couple of nights later we tried the

Duck Deli, for some barbecue

(according to an article on Duck in

the NY Times, barbecue is a noun,

not a verb, in N.C.).  We arrived at

8:50, only to be told that they were

only doing take-out.  We ordered a

barbecue sampler platter and took

it back to the hotel.  It turned out to

be a pleasant dinner, sitting on the

large deck and listening to the

sound of the surf coming over the

dunes.  The barbecue though was

a disappointment.  The ribs and

pulled pork were both dry and

tough.  And they were served with

something called "hush puppies",

which as far as we could tell are

deep fried mashed potatoes.  We

had much better at Pancho Villa's, a

Mexican food chain, when we

stopped over in Fredericksburg on

the drive down.

The same NY Times piece

recommends the sticky cinnamon

buns at Tullio's Pastry, but we

found them to be ordinary.

And while I'm on the topic of

restaurants in Duck, I should

mention the Roadside Raw Bar and

Grill.  We had a good dinner here,

but the place is not without it's

quirks.  First, they won't deviate

from the dishes on the menu - not

even to combine side dishes from

one item with the entre from

another.  And second, we couldn't

get a glass of milk.  "No milk in the

house" our waitress told us, or for

our coffee (same spiel..."No milk in

the house").

We continued on to visit Colonial

Williamsburg in Virginia