We had a very full, very fun day yesterday - I love the Outer Banks! The Roanoke Colony Festival Park was very interesting - there’s a museum, a replica of one of the ships that we could go all thru, and an Native American village and English settlement. It was all very hands-on - fantastic for kids.

After that we went to the Wright Brothers Memorial - another good museum with replicas of the glider they flew hundreds of times working out the mechanics of steering, etc, and the first plane they flew.

This is the Wright Bros' plane - one of them would lie on top of the lower wing next to that black cylinder which is the gas engine. Looks pretty flimsy, doesn't it!

Gary took this photo from the top of the sand dune that they launched their glider from. The two buildings are replicas of their hangar and the "camp" they lived in. The larger stone at the end of the long walk marks the place where the plane took off. The four stones to the right of that mark the length of the four flights they made that first day. The first flight was only 120 feet long, the last 852.

Stopped for a coffee and then started down the Outer Banks, headed for the lighthouse at Cape Hatteras. The OBX actually goes on farther than that but we didn’t have that much time. 

 Loved this cool house on the beach - it  used to be a Coast Guard rescue station but now is unused.

Another house I thought was cool. We couldn't believe the number of huge, million dollar houses in the areas that weren't part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore - they're miles and miles from anywhere so what do those folks do to earn those houses?

This is a shipwreck - a Civil War era steamship that went aground in the shallows offshore.

Finally made it to the Cape Hatteras lighthouse but too late to climb to the top (oh darn!) 

Stopped at a wildlife area on the way back north to get these photos of the beautiful sunset.

Really starving by the time we got back to town so we went to a place we had passed before called Big Al’s Diner - a 50's diner with a Coke decorating theme. I decided that would be my birthday dinner so I had coconut shrimp (which were amazing - put Red Lobster’s to shame!) and key lime pie.

Today was a driving day - after a stop at a huge Christmas shop!! We are spending the night in Wilmington, NC and will go on to Charleston tomorrow. May not post anything tomorrow night as it will just be another driving day.