Our next bookend ( hard reservation) is in D.C., so we'd eventually need to head to the coast anyway- since the weather isn't conducive to hiking in the higher elevations of the mountains, we decided to head to the OBX, (short for Outer Banks) and the town of Hatteras, NC.
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| the wind blows the tops off the dunes and onto the road |
This area of the coast is known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, so it made sense to pay a visit to the museum named The Graveyard of the Atlantic. The price was right for this little museum (free) because although it had some interesting information, it was presented in a disjointed way.
There have been hundreds of shipwrecks off the coast of North Carolina, in large part due to Shoaling and shifting of the ocean floor. To save lives after a ship has been wrecked along the coast, Life Saving Stations were set up along the North Carolina coastline.
The U.S. Lifesaving Service was first started in Massachusetts in 1787, and consisted of huts along the Mass. coast to provide shelter for shipwrecked mariners. In 1807, William Nantucket was commissioned to build the first life saving boat, which could be launched from shore. That system was also used in North Carolina, and by 1874, seven shelters had been built along the coastline here. The service remained in place until 1915 when the Revenue Cutter Service was merged with the Lifesaving Service to create the U.S. Coast Guard.
There are several well known towns here in the Outer Banks. One of them is Rodanthe, home to a herd of wild horses known as the Banker ponies. I was hoping for a glimpse, but it turns out the horses don't run along the road. Go figure. In fact, to see them in their element, you need to pretty much take a tour, and go four wheeling. I've seen wild horses before, so we passed on that excursion.
Wright Brothers National Memorial
One of the other famous towns is Kitty Hawk, where, in December of 1903, the Wright brothers were the first to fly a motor driven airplane. 
They flew 4 flights that first day- the first one lasted 12 seconds and went a distance of 120 feet, and the 4th one lasted 59 seconds and flew a distance of 852 feet. The rock in the foreground represents where the plane took off from, and the white rocks in the distance are where they touched down again. You can barely see the marker for the 4th flight, way off in the distance.
The brothers regularly enlisted the aid of off duty Life Saving crew members to help them move the planes around, etc. and one of them was in charge of taking pictures of the actual flights on that first day.
On the walls inside the museum were paintings of individuals who had a major impact on flying, or were the first to do something. Some of the names were very recognizable and some were not:
George Bush- first military flyer to become President,
Clyde Cessna-Aviation Pioneer,
Igor Sikorsky- first to build and fly a helicopter in the western hemisphere,
Albert Berry- first man to parachute from a plane,
Yuri Gagarin- first man to orbit the earth.
The one that I was surprised to see on the wall was Herbert Kelleher- founder of Southwest Airlines. He started the company in 1971 with three planes, and the company has grown to a fleet of over 600 planes flying 3400 routes. The airline has never had an in-flight fatality, has been profitable for 40 consecutive years and has never furloughed any employees.
