Hatteras

 11/17- Ocracoke campground, Ocracoke NC

   We started out the day heading back to the beach to see if Alayne’s hat had washed up. No luck was had as I guess old King Neptune needed a new hat for his collection. The drive was mostly in a straight line through all kinds of commercial enterprises. It amazed me the amount of traffic here. Every cross street had a stop light. I assume in the summer you probably need them just to get on the road. 

   We finally got to the National Seashore road and the commercialism thinned out. It would seem that some of these communities are pretty far out there but still it is summer tourism keeping them going. The road in places is all but in the ocean. In fact in one place the waves were breaking on the shoulder of the road and it was not yet high tide. The sand is everywhere and I bet they have trouble keeping it out of their houses and everywhere else. 

   We stopped at the Hatteras lighthouse and took a walk on the beach. We met a fellow Vermonter who drove down here to go surfing. They had moved the lighthouse about a half mile inland and it was covered in scaffolding as they renovated it. The parking lot and some side streets in town were filled with debris from a storm about a month ago. This was the remains of a bunch of houses that fell into the ocean. 

   Back on the road again we motored along until we got to the end of the road where we boarded a ferry. Ocracoke is only about 3 miles from here but the ferry ride takes over an hour because they have to avoid all the shifting sandbars. He drove a twisting turning route just to get out of the harbor. 

   The campground is right next to the beach. After walking the beach a bit this afternoon we decided it was pretty much like all the other beaches we’ve seen lately. We did however walk down to the beach after supper to count stars. We didn’t see any Leonids but there certainly were a multitude of stars. 

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