::Stilt-house Nightmare & Jet Noise::

::AY THIRTEEN::

We had a decision to make: Do we stay one more day here and tear up the coast to our last camping spot in Delaware? Or do we slowly drive in search of a campground along the way at a more leisurely pace? I winced just thinking about returning to that beach with the nasty green bugs, so we decided we should move on.

While Aidan was still waking up I took Cae and Lij with me to the neighbourhood coffeehouse. "It'll stand the hair up on your head," our camper-friend had assured us. Perfect! This one was very cozy. I think coffee shops are up near the top of my happy-place list. While we sat Caelah met me a mom to chat with. She warned us that there wouldn't be any camping until we were way up at the North end of Carolina. I soon knew what she meant...

We had a quick ferry ride across to Hatteras. Took a peek at a very pretty lighthouse I really wanted to climb but couldn't because it would have been cost-prohibitive to do so. This was followed by a three hour drive along the bleak remainder of the Outer Banks. It soon became clear that all there was to see was miles and miles of sand, beachgrass and stilt-houses. The ocean was just out of site because of the dunes so landscape past by in a blur of tan and grey. At first the alienness of it all kept me occupied, but after miles and miles of the same bleached and treeless landscape I began to feel like I was loosing my mind. It got so bad I started to hide my face deep in a book, shutting out even my peripheral vision.





And then we reached ::Duck::-- and I could breathe again. This oasis of green almost at the very tip of the Outer Banks. Maybe my numbed mind went into hyper-drive at the sight of greenery, but I fell instantly in love with the place. To the West were huge beach homes a few steps from the ocean. To the right a calm-watered sound lined with weather-greyed boardwalk. And the quaintest array of shops in between. Down by the docks we happened upon a couple yanking nets out of the water off the end of a dock and carefully disentangling a couple of crabs from within. "Lunch?" I had asked. "No, snack" she replied. That clinched it. I wanted to stay. But upon asking at a book store in town I was told there was no camping, nor any hotels. The only accommodation for outsiders were the beach houses. And they were rented at group rates. Hmmm. {Next summer sounds good. Anyone interested?}

We were frustrated to discover that we had overshot our last chance to get to the mainland from the barrier islands back in a town called Kill Devil Hills. Noooooooo! Don't make me re-enter that hellish wasteland! Mercifully, the turn off was only a few miles back and I didn't see a single house on stilts. We drove around for far too long trying to find a place to camp. We stopped in at a library to check campground locations on the internet. We seriously looked like hobos. Isaiah had no shirt on. Gabriel had no shoes. I sat down to read a story to the boys and looked down at my feet. A line of dirt extending from my toes to mid-calf. I noticed a woman just across the way eyeing my filthy sandals. She got up and never returned. This short visit back to civilization revealed much--we were subconsciously hungry for a little bit of comfort. The kids drifted towards the toys and computer games and stuck there. Annorah kept resting her head on the softness of the carpet. And I picked up a random book and sunk deep into a sofa, lapsing into a literary coma. But mostly, we all breathed in the cool air-conditioned air deeply through our pores. It was all we could do to leave. . .

At long last we made the decision to ::KOA:: it. A friend of mine urged me not to dis the KOA, but really? When the slogan of a place is It's not camping. It's kamping. . . Need I say more? It's like when an adult still writes; I luv u 2 in a letter. So very sad. The thing is our library trip made us desperate for soft beds and air-conditioning. Norah and Isaiah had heat rash creeping down their torsos. And I had forgotten what it was like to smell fresh. Upon arrival, the kids caught one glimpse of the bouncy pad and the pool with the water slides and threw their arms around my legs; "Oh, thank you Mommy." And they were off.

The unique thing about this place was the low rumble that would build from the West. The rumble grew to a roar, forcing every eye upwards in time to see magnificent fighter jets tearing across the sky in formations of two and three. The camp store sold bumper stickers that read: I heart Jet Noise. Very cool. Less cool at 11:00 pm when the cabin windows were shaking and kids were nearly asleep. I jammed some ear plugs I happened to have on hand and fell asleep to the slightly-muted sound of jet engines.

::The Big Ferry & The Dream Village::

::AY TWELVE::

::The Outer Banks:: A long, thin sandy strip of land stretched like a barrier between the shores of North Carolina and the Atlantic ocean. I had been looking forward to this leg of the trip since we first planned it. It sounded to essentially coastal. But first we had a ferry to catch. . .

The morning played out like the Amazing Race, as I knew it would. We had 4 hours to drive to "the Big Ferry," approximately 3.5 hours away. I am no good under time constraints. As a rule I am not a stressed-out person, but when a lot rides on making a deadline I am a mess. I was staring at Serena-the-GPS's time estimates intensely, just waiting for a traffic jam or situation with the kids. But nothing really came. The drive was clear and the kids were great. We enjoyed a few Gabri-isms, as I have come to call them. At one point Isaiah must have bopped him for one reason or another--maybe no reason at all-- and Gabri yipped; "Hey! Isaiah just cracked me like a crab!" He is so contextually driven. He breathes the place he is in through his skin and spits it out through his mouth in words.

Another: Upon throwing his banana peel on the ground and being roundly rebuked by Elijah, Gabriel imperiously announced that we need not worry "Wall.E will clean it up." Right. {Note: To understand the humour of this you will have had to watch the ::movie::}.

{My good little sport. Do you see the heat rash?}

After a brief scare at a bridge only 30 minutes from the ferry, (where we were stopped for 10 minutes by a construction crew), we slid into line for the ferry. And then we heard it: this odd whining noise reverberating off the walls of the ticket booth as we passed by. What was that? Aidan got out of the car and groaned; "Our tire is completely flat." Because I had been waiting for an event such as this from the moment we first pulled out of our driveway two weeks ago, I was almost serenely calm. The timing could not have been worse, and yet, I was ready to accept whatever came. Fortunately, what came was the worlds most zippy and serious Ferry Pit Crew I have ever encountered. They came out of nowhere and descended upon the wheel of the van. Crank. Crank. Unscrew. Pop. Re screw. Voila! Spare tire was on as the ferry docked. Shopping for a new tire would come later. For now we had a ferry to ride.

The ferry was fast. As we pulled out of the sound I saw some jelly fish whip by. And the kids and I saw some crab flailing away near the surface. This surprised me. I thought crabs were bottom-dwellers. We all took turns sitting in the air conditioned passenger cabin of the ferry, but the kids wanted to look at the rail. After an hour a slim finger of land came into view. The map indicated it to be Pelican Island. But Gabriel had other ideas: He pointed and hollered; "Land, Ho! Look! The Arctic!" The guy next to us thought this was priceless. I heard him tell his wife later.

This leg of the trip was completely unplanned. We had no sleeping arrangements lined up, nor any real idea what we would find. We pulled away from the ferry terminal and found ourselves instantly charmed and enthralled by this place called Ocracoke. Narrow roads 'paved' with crushed clam shells. Crowded independent shops lining the main road. Long wooden piers lined with masts and sea birds. People walking around in surf shorts holding ice cream cones. A dream village, really. There is a wealth of history to the place too. Apparently it was awash with pirates in the 1700's, including the infamous Blackbeard.

We settled om a private campground called "Teeters." It proved to essentially be a man's backyard crammed with RV's. And yet we settled in with delight against a cozy green corner of the property. A couple had greeted us as we pulled in with the news that the owner was currently working at the local school down the road. But these two were clearly the guardians of the place. The woman called him up right there and what I heard through her thick Southern accent was--"Sorry to botha you honey but theya's a nass family here who wanna set on up. S'that alrayat?"

They told us they came to this village about twenty years ago for vacation and have returned ever since. They had a dog named Fisher who the kids adored. When she told him to sit it sounded like she was asking him to speak; "Say-it! Say-it!" They were very kind. If we had stayed longer it would have been a pleasure to get to know them better. After we set up and got ready to take a walk through the village the woman informed us the owner should be back by the time we returned; "Just look for the man with bare feet and no shirt on."

We were so eager to swim before bed we didn't have much of a dinner. It was bit of a drive down a long stretch of empty beachgrass. We walked up a long wooden boardwalk and found a beach with waves that scared me even from a distance. On the shore the only thing left of the shells were polished tooth-like scraps. Pretty in their own way. One of the neatest things to watch were the tiny clams. They would be washed up in batches and within second would scuttled upright and burrow deep into the sand in a flurry of wiggles. If you placed a hand over them you could feel the vibration of them all burrowing.

waffle²n waffle [ˈwofəl]a flat cake that is pressed firmly between two metal grills creating a pattern of squares on it.

This is my understanding of the word waffle. And yet I heard it applied in the following way by a little girl in passing: "Man, I was totally waffled by a wave today." Huh! Caelah and I burst into giggles when we heard it because it was so appropriate! I wish I could say I was baffled by the use of the term but I had, in fact, only just been waffled for the first time myself at Cape Hatteras Beach. And I would truly never like to identify with a breakfast food again. The wave crested, pounded me in the back, picked my legs up from under me, shoved me to the floor of the ocean and smeared me up the sharp shell-crusted shore. Salt water up my nose and scrapes up my body. Flattened and grilled: Waffled!

Another nasty surprise awaited us as we gathered our things and walked back along the boardwalk. "Nasty green buggers," as they were described by a local. Big green horseflies hunted us down and took big bites out of us as we tried to wash up at the bathhouse. They scared us silly. I could almost hear the horror music from Psycho playing in the air as we ran to the van, got in, slammed the doors behind us only to spot one of the green uglies perched on the back window. Caelah screamed like banshee until Elijah squashed it with a piece of Lego.

Ah, beach life!

::The Place to Ourselves & Great Pizza::

::AY TEN::

Before leaving Hunting Island I was determined to run on the beach. It is something I had envisioned doing long before this day and would have been really disappointed in myself had I not managed to do it at least once. My eyes popped open at 5:50 A.m. My inner alarm clock did not let me down. I hesitantly put on socks and runners--the last thing I wanted to do in the heat--and started down the path.

I have to say, the next hour remains my most treasured beach memory of the trip. The sunrise was pink and gold. The tide was very low, leaving behind the nicest shell I found during our two weeks. I walked past a very defensive yellow crab and a gracefully perched White Heron on the pier. I spotted our neighbour-camper and his dog passed-out higher up on the shore amidst the beach grass. (We found out later that, desperate to escape the heat, he had escaped to the beach in hope of sleep--he was devoured by horse flies instead.) I took my time and drank in everything. On the way back I saw two park rangers checking the Loggerhead nesting grounds. I had hoped to spot a few hatched turtles myself, but saw only sand:

Reluctantly, I walked back to camp for breakfast and a billion & one trips back and forth down the trail to pack up for the next leg of the trip: Carolina Beach. On the way, I have to mention, we experienced our first Krispy Kreme donuts--yum! Forget the filling, the dough is delicious on its own.

Driving up to Carolina Beach was a completely different experience from Hunting Island. This place was dead. No cars. No tents. No camp store. Nothing. I vaguely remember reading that the marina was closed for renovation, but figured that had nothing to do with us. It turns out the whole waterfront area was closed off. So, if we needed wood, or ice, or swimming, or anything at all we had to drive into town. I was really grumpy about this. In fact, this precise moment marked my biggest personal challenge all trip. It coincided with Caelah beginning to feel homesick--which is often catching. And so I began to feel that ache of wanted to be anywhere but where we were. And I began trying to find a way out of there. I had Aidan see if we could re-book our Ferry to the Outer Banks for early next morning, but after many phone calls and wasted energy the answer was no. So we were stuck for two days in the sticks--with ticks. (Rhyme! There were tick warnings everywhere which had both Cae and I very paranoid).

I exercised my faith and my mind as I steered my attitude away from frustration and discontentment, and towards joy. I simply accepted that there was nothing to be done, and reminded myself that God's children always have joy available for the taking. So I reached for it and found it. The kids and I had such fun that night. We played Simon Says, and danced, and played cards & were generally silly. And we didn't have to think about noise or privacy because there was no one to hear or see. Also, that evening I bumped into another camper in the washrooms who knew the area and gave us the scoop on where to go and what to see. Always take the path of joy. It's there, waiting.

{Aidan was very impressed with the fire pit. He has plans to build one just like it at home.}

{Norah slept in her bubble some nights. But mostly it kept her contained during set-up and take-down.}

::AY ELEVEN::

The helpful local I talked to tipped me on where to swim. She said to avoid the main beach and head to Kure Beach instead. We drove through some of the tackiest, craziest beach suburb ever and found free parking along the way. The beach was near an enormous pier. I never did climb it, but wish I had. The waves at this beach were a bit bigger than the last, but still manageable.

I began to see contrasts in my kids' personalities. Elijah and Caelah ventured into the waves, as long as they had their gear on. Gabriel refused. At first it frustrated me, but then I saw how he interacted with the ocean: he ran back and forth along the waterline, splashing and chasing gulls and screeching with laughter. He was thrilled to be there. His play simply looked different than his older brother and sister's did. Isaiah dug in the sand and then rummaged through my diaper bag looking for gum when we weren't looking. He did this again and again until everything in there was covered in sand, including the gum. And Norah was happy to be wherever I was. She actually loved the water. Fearless, even when breakers crashed up around her. But she also loved being swaddled in a towel on my lap.

Cooking over a camp stove in 100 degree weather is no fun. We ate many dinners on the road or out at a local establishment. One of our favourite dinners was found in the historic town of ::Wilmington:: We had showered the sand off all five kids, with varying degrees of success. Then made our way to the little town by the river. We saw so many historic homes belonging to military heroes. It was also the site of a huge battleship we admired from a distance down by the boardwalk.

We stared into the inviting windows of a pizza/pub called "Slice of Life" before the waitress came out and encouraged us to come sit inside, despite our five crazies. They took some focused management, but what else is new? And then the pizza came and mmmmmmmm! I ordered a white pizza. The best I have ever had. And I have had many, many pizzas.

For dessert we followed this fantastic smell next door where we watched ladies making waffle cones from scratch. We had to have one, so we all ordered ice cream. Actually, I made the mistake of thinking Aidan and I should share one. But every time I asked for a bite he nearly growled at me! I can't blame him.

That evening Elijah had special time along with us by the fire. Caelah refused to stay outside with the bugs. Of all the kids, Elijah is the most transformed by alone time with Aidan and I. He could barely contain his joy over having us to himself. I invented a version of cribbage to play with him while Aidan heated up some hot chocolate. We are discovering more and more how clever he is with numbers and strategy. He won the game.

::Sweat and Sobs & Introducing the Ocean::

::AY EIGHT::

It was time to say goodbye to our Georgia cousins. We drove back along the highway to a book store in Maryanne's end of town to trade back our children. It was a hard goodbye. "I don't want your family to go," she'd said as we got our little people buckled in. Anna and Caelah were very brave. Maryanne and I both see our younger selves in them: strong girls-- different, yet deeply compatible. In the rear view I watched a quiet girl fight with tears for a little while. I imagine my mom would have seen the very same thing in her own mirror twenty years ago.

Savannah was unanimously hailed as a must-see place. While it would have been wisest to simply drive past the exit signs and get to camp in daylight, we veered off to explore for a bit. Of course, a "bit" became a lot as we wound our way through cobbled streets and past unique garden squares filled with ornate water fountains. We walked down along the river and sampled seafood outside restaurants. Dinner was a wood-fired pizza that left us coated in cheesy grease. And slowly the daylight began to fade.

It was 7:30 pm before we got back to the van and almost 8:30 by the time we made it to ::Hunting Island State Park:: And that's when things began to descend into sweat and sobs-- went to poop, as we say. . .

We pulled up to our site and realized what a monumental challenge the next hour would be. We had to park our van and wander down a dusty, jungle-of-a pathway for a quarter of a mile just to get to the spot where we were supposed to pitch our tent. What?! The best we could do was get all of the sleepy, grumpy kids down the path first, and then have me wait there while Aidan went back and forth to grab the tent gear.

Funny things happen to me at twilight. Something about the blue light and the mind preparing itself for darkness, but my heart began to hammer hard as the kids wailed and I watched spiky palm fronds sway against the sky. I convinced myself that the weird noises were emanating from exotic jungle fauna that would bite the hapless tourists who who would quickly succumb for lack of any antibodies. {It was probably a bunch of raccoons}.

It was nearly ten o'clock by the time the oldest kids were sprawled across their sleeping bags. But Annorah , having been stretched far past her limit, cried long and hard into the night. She pitched back and forth--sweaty and miserable. And Aidan and I wondered if we would make it another ten days. I knew that we would reach this mental breaking point at some point along the way. I just didn't expect it to be the very first night. But I was ready for it. I instinctively prayed and prayed and prayed my way through the screams and the creepy noises outside. And finally, Norah snuggled close and drifted of. And we were pretty much comatose until morning.

::AY NINE::

Everything looks brighter in the morning. But in the South everything is still stinking hot too! No such thing as a cool evening breeze apparently. We woke up in the same heat we fell asleep in. The daylight revealed some cool wildlife. We saw some little green lizards and heard some brand new bird calls. The palms were dense and completely new to us. But one thing was very clear: the day had to be spent by the water or we would die from the heat. We packed our beach gear up and drove to the water.

We took a small path up over some small dunes grown with beach grass and there it was. "Welcome to the ocean guys!" I was not disappointed by the reactions. "Whoa! That's a lot of water!" In hindsight, we were truly fortunate to have come across this beach first. It was ideally suited to small kids who had no ocean experience: the water was warm--so unexpected--, it remained shallow far from shore and the waves were gentle. This meant that there was more sea life on the shore at low tide and more likelihood that the kids would even want to swim. (In the next week the beaches would get colder and the waves far more intense.)

We learned so much that first day about beach life. We had a red beach umbrella, but saw many fantastic canopies that provided much more shade. The most seasoned beach-goers pulled Radio Flyer wagons loaded with their day's necessities down the shore and set up just beyond the high tide mark. We also learned that only Northerners wear life jackets or extra items of clothing into the water. There seems to be a general immunity to the effects of waves and sun among the locals. Sigh. Fighting resentments, as I donned my long-sleeved shirt, hat and quart of sunscreen, I reassured myself with this fact: these sun babies would never survive a Canadian winter. So there.

Such beauty! Flocks of pelicans. White Egrets perched on the pier. Hermit crabs, both burdened and protected by their transient shell-homes. Sea birds dive-bombing the ocean in hope of snatching up fish. White shrimp boats slowly trawling in circles--clouds of sea gulls eagerly flying in their wake. Sand dollars peppering the ocean floor--we had to snatch them with our toes and lift them to the surface. Ignorantly, I gathered about six of them and brought them back to camp to dry. In fact, I set them on our van's dashboard to dry in the sun! Had I been caught I might have faced a "hefty fine":
And the sound... I will never tire of the sound of waves on the shore. It's a sound that pulls me and keeps we awed.

For dinner we drove into town and stopped at The Gay Fish Co. for a pound of fresh shrimp to BBQ. But we quickly learned of how the heat can limit ones appetite. We all nibbled at our food. The kids went down smoothly that night and Aidan and I enjoyed a game of cribbage by the fire before heading to bed.