Nags Head

Today was a low mileage day. I spent a lot of time being a tourist. The bike trail was really quiet and peaceful this morning.

I hadn’t even been riding 30 minutes when I came to a pier. It was the perfect place for to brew another cup of coffee.

I’m afraid the great weather I have been enjoying might be over with soon. When jet contrails don’t fade it usually means rain in 24 hours. Also there was lots cirrus and altocumulus clouds too. In folk lore they are referred to as mare’s tails. The altocumulus are known as mackerel scales. The saying is mares tails and mackerel scales make tall ships lower their sails. I have found that to be at least as accurate as red sky at morning, sailors take warning. However the very best way to tell the weather is to drink coffee. After pouring it in your cup, watch the bubbles. The bubbles will either go to the center wich is high pressure,nice weather or will go to the outside of the cup indicating low pressure, expect some bad weather. Sorry I digressed. But in all seriousness it’s another really good reason to drink more coffee!

After my coffee break I came to Kill Devil Hills. That is where the Wright Brothers flew the first time. There is a monument and a replica of their plane there. I climbed up the hill to the monument. It was much higher then it looked.

Where the replica of the plane was there were sculptures of all the people that were there that day. I really liked the one of the photographer. The dew made it look like he had sweat dripping off his nose. That’s something I can relate to. I would of loved to of been the photographer there that day.

The Wright Brothers were from Dayton Ohio but came to Kitty Hawk because of the wind. I biked through Dayton but can’t really remember them being mentioned there. On December 17, 1903 they made history as the first to fly in their plane, The Wright Flyer.

That was in December of 1903. 75 years later not more then 7 miles south, something else of great importance happened. It did not quite make the history books like the Wright Brothers, but to me it isn’t any less conceivable then what the first flight must of been to people of that time. In August of 1978, from the highest sand dune on the east coast, from the sandy crown of Jockey Ridge my mother hang-glided!! (I would of loved to of been a photographer for that too)

I got on rt 158. It was heavy, noisy traffic and I really wasn’t enjoying it. I had been a few miles when a driver rolled his window down and shouted at me to use the bike path. All cyclist will encounter rude drivers sometime. I had been 4000 miles with out being yelled at so I was doing good. As I thought about it a little more I realized the driver had a bike rack on his suv and he didn’t seem angry. Maybe there was a bike path and he was being helpful. I pulled off the road to try to find out but Google had nothing. I took a side road towards the ocean hoping to find one. I really didn’t want to be on that road either. About 3 blocks away I found it. It wasn’t always scenic but it was quiet and separated from the road. It was through residential areas and there was hardly any traffic any way. I was really happy to be on it. I didn’t seem to have much energy and it was perfect for a slow cruise.

I wasn’t very hungry today probably because of the low mileage. 3 eggs with hot dogs was what I had for dinner.

I am really enjoying being on the Outer Banks. My Dad was in the Coast Guard for a while and was stationed at Oregon Inlet. I have heard stories of all these places but have never been here.