To the Outer Banks, NC- Sunday, February 18, 2024

    We woke up in Gettysburg and went to breakfast at the "Breakfast Cottage."  It is a cute little house which is associated with our hotel but in a separate building.  When Scott checked out, he also bought another volume of the Ghosts of Gettysburg series-- Volume VIII.  Then we drove past familiar battlefield landmarks along the Emmitsburg Road as we headed out of town and into Maryland.  We stopped at a lot of rest stops and visitors centers on our way south.  We crossed the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel.  (They are apparently expanding it and there was a lot of construction happening, but the traffic was moving briskly.)  We ended up having lunch in Norfolk.

      We got to our hotel around 3:00.  It's right on the beach in Kill Devil Hills, and we've got a room with small balcony and an ocean view.  We were impressed as soon as we came into the lobby because it smells almost exactly like a Disney hotel.  Scott sat on a footstool by Abby while Mom was checking in, but it doesn't seem to be built for sitting on because he flipped right over backwards with his legs up in the air.  The only thing he hurt was his dignity, though.

     We went up to the room, which is aqua colored like the hallways, giving it a dated look, but certainly a beachy appearance.  We went onto our balcony and sat and enjoyed the view for a moment.  The sky in Virginia had been sunny, but here in North Carolina it was overcast.  The temperature was in the mid-40s, so we were wearing jackets, but it felt warm enough to us.   While we were enjoying the view, Julie swore she saw a dolphin come up out of the water-- more on that in a moment.  Once we got our stuff up to the room, Abby was very wound up, and was running back and forth repeating, "We'regoingtothebeach!! We'regoingtothebeach! We'regoingothebeach!" as fast as she could.   So our next step was to go down to the beach.

     The exit for the beach is on the second floor.  There is a bar/restaurant that was empty today, but you exit from there onto their patio, and then over a series of ramps down to the beach.  The ramps are taking you over a large sand dune that runs across the back of the hotel.   On our first trip down to the beach, Abby was barefoot.  Her initial enthusiasm quickly faded when she felt how cold the sand was.  She refused to go on it until we put her sneakers back on her feet.  Then she sat on the deep, cold sand and played while Julie and Scott watched the waves.

     It was then that Scott also spotted the dolphins that Julie had seen from the balcony.  It was hard to count them, but there were at least seven or eight that were swimming in at least two different groups.  We couldn't tell if we were seeing some over again, but it wouldn't surprise us if there was as many as a dozen in the pod in our general vicinity.   They were hard to photograph because they'd only come up for a moment for air but because they were in these small groups, several of them would come up together.  We don't know for sure if Abby saw them or not, but Mom and Dad were certainly watching them. 

      Since Anna has been to the Outer Banks with Noah and his family, we thought she'd like to see what we were seeing on the beach, so Julie started a Facetime call with her.  Anna is currently in Allegany State Park because this is the weekend that Noah and she go with his family to camp there.   She must be having a good time there because she was horizontal when she answered the Facetime call and fell back asleep while we were trying to show her the waves and dolphins.

     After the beach, we went to get dinner because it was after 5:00.  The front desk told us that many things were closed since it was off-season, but he directed us to a place called Barefoot Bernie's a few miles away in Kitty Hawk.  It is a restaurant/bar that is themed to tropical beaches and, for some reason, the Pittsburgh Steelers (?).  The food was good though.  We stopped at Starbucks for Julie on the way back to the hotel, and then returned to the hotel where it was pool-time for Abby.