Outer Banks Summer Vacation - Day 2

It's going to be time for our next vacation by the time I finish blogging about this one!
We all slept late since the day before had been so long with the traveling. We had breakfast at the same hotel restaurant where we had eaten dinner the night before. Not as impressive. Oh well.
We had a three hour drive to the coast ahead of us and even with the sleeping in, the kids dozed off for a while.

 Please don't flame me for the horrible seat belt usage displayed here.

The very first thing that caught my attention was how green and lush and beautiful everything was. It was a welcome change from the dull, brown days of August here at home.
There were gorgeous blooming trees all over the place. Beautiful!
And there were new kinds of farmland to see. The tobacco fields are always a favorite of mine. Although it wasn't quite late enough in the season to smell their rich, earthy scent. As much as I despise smoking, I love the scent of tobacco harvest.
There were fields of sweet potatoes and what I think might have been peanuts.
And lots of fields full of the plants in this picture. Lush and green and dotted with white and pink blossoms. I couldn't figure out what was growing there and I was determined to ask someone as soon as I got a chance. But I forgot. Now I think that they are cotton plants. If you click on the picture you can see the ball shaped things... cotton bolls, I think. Anyone know for sure? Anyway...it was fun to see crops we weren't used to.

 We stopped at a rest stop in Scuppernong which happened to be next door to the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. There was an interpretive boardwalk that I could not resist. So we took a stroll to stretch our legs and see what there was to see.

 There were hundreds of dragonflies. Hundreds! In a hundred different colors. Which I thought was amazing and beautiful. Jaxon didn't notice them at first. But then a huge butterfly flittered by his face, which freaked him out and then he started noticing all the dragonflies and rapidly dissolved into screams of terror. So Kenzie hurried him around the rest of the boardwalk and waited for us at the visitor's center. ugh!

 Pictures including Jaxon were taken BD (Before Dragonflies)

 There were these giant black and yellow striped spiders too.

 And lizards with electric blue tails!

 All kinds of pretty flowers to see.

 Mushrooms growing from tree trunks. Not at all surprising considering the humidity which kind of took us all by surprise when we got out of the car, even though we fully expected it. lol It's a shock to the system to begin breathing moisture.

 

 Cat tails, which Emily calls "corn dog plants". LOL

 The only animal we saw was this little squirrel that came rushing through the tree tops and then trying to make like a limb so we couldn't see him.

 What a great way to break up the drive! So glad we happened on that rest stop.
We all piled back in the car and within a few minutes I saw an image on the GPS that strikes fear in the heart of this scared of the water girl...

 Yikes! I used to have nightmares about driving on a tall bridge and not being able to see land on either end of it. The bridge just went on and on and on and got higher and higher and higher. *shudder* I'm pretty sure that nightmare was the result of traveling on bridges like this during my child hood.

 Gah! But, you know what? I was just so thrilled to be there this time that the bridges didn't even really bother me. And before we knew it we were in the Outer Banks! We had some time to kill before we could check into our rented beach house so we grabbed a bite to eat and then checked in and grabbed some groceries and settled into the house.
Within minutes Jaxon found a stash of toys and got busy doing what he does best.

 We still had an hour or so of daylight left at this point and I knew there was no way I could let the sun set on that day without getting my feet into the ocean. Even if it was just for a few minutes.
I know it sounds corny but it's a spiritual experience for me to be not just at the coast, but IN the ocean. It's just amazing and powerful and larger than...well, everything.And that moves me.

See? Can you hear it? Feel it? The ebb and flow. Water rushing out and crashing back in...ahhh....I could just BE there all day every day.