Travellers Tales 2012: Round Up

Another vacation has come and gone. We got lost in the mountains of West Virginia, we set the grill on fire, we had the police show up, we drove through the ocean, we met Legally Blind Luke, we laughed hard, we ate good, we enjoyed company, and we said our goodbyes. It seemed this year went by faster than the rest. In the end, we all hated to leave, but were glad to be home.

Well, not without one last assassination attempt from Siri, formerly known as Matilda. This time, we decided to just follow our directions in reverse and skip the GPS. However, when we got to Route 17 in Virginia, Siri also told us to get off of 95. We couldn’t believe it. Siri didn’t want us to go towards the beltway in DC?

Since we hadn’t gone this way before, I decided to get gas as soon as we jumped off the interstate. When I returned to driving, Siri told me to head back to 95. This GPS that had just told me to get off 95 and onto 17 was now telling me to go back the way I just came and get back on 95. Well, after thinking I was wrong and doing a turnabout at a light and heading back towards 95, I said, “Shut up, Siri.” I then turned around and we went on our way. That was the last we dealt with Siri on this trip.

In closing, I want to offer up a few tips we learned this year. Nothing huge, but if you are planning to go to the OBX and want to know how to avoid the pitfalls, here’s what I can tell you.

• Depending on your ice and cooler situation, I highly suggest hitting the Food Lion right after the bridge on 158. It’s less crowded and you’ll save time on getting to your final destination.
• Make friends with the local police and fire department.
• If you’re staying in the 4x4 section, pay close attention to the tide chart. Make sure you know when high tide is coming if you decide to take an extended leave from your house.
• Not all shuffling people at the shoreline are zombies.
• There is a fine for having stuff like chairs, sand toys, sand structures sitting in the way of traffic on the beach and it’s a $50 fine per item.
• Only use your GPS if you get lost.
• Wear loose pants when heading to Captain George’s buffet.
• Don’t forget sunscreen.

Travellers Tales 2012: Zombie Moon Shine Serenade

After surviving the high tide-near wash out of a drive home, we decided to relax on the deck with some drinks. I managed to empty a bottle of our Apple Pie “hooch” and even created a deadly concoction… well, to my arteries. I mixed the shine with some French Vanilla coffee creamer, effectively making Apple Pie a la Mode. It was very tasty.

As the darkness fell across the beach and the full moon began to rise we saw the waters subside, uncovering the beach road, which allowed traffic to flow once again. Though, they usually caution against travelling on the beach at night. The sunken forest of petrified stumps that dot the landscape could wreak havoc on the axles of your truck, I’m told.

Drink after drink we consumed to calm the nerves of our ordeal with just getting home for the night led to conversation about the latest events we had heard on the news. In Miami, there was a “zombie” incident, in which a man, high on bath salts, disrobed and proceeded to chew the face of another man. What? Yes, this has become a big story, apparently. In our seclusion up among the wild horses and men who live in houses with baby doll heads on posts… still trying to get that picture… we were somewhat shaded from current events, strange or otherwise. Armed with an Internet connection I had found that another incident had occurred. Once again, a man, high on bath salts pretended to act like a zombie after being arrested.

So, we talked into the night about the ramifications of a possible zombie apocalypse. I thought back to reading The Zombie Survival Guide and thought that, in the event, we might be in pretty decent shape up here. Zombies aren’t the best of walkers, so the sand would give us a chance at escape. Not to mention, the isolation of being in this area wouldn’t attract their attention as much as being in the hustle and bustle of the lower, commercial areas. We have Internet and satellite television, so if the word came, we could make a trip down to the stores to get what supplies we needed to make a long term stand. And, we had a pool, which makes for waiting out the apocalypse a little more enjoyable.

Although, I could imagine the following scenario:

“MARCO!”

“BRAAAINS!”

The more we drank, the funnier the conversation became. Soon, we noticed something down at the water line. It looked like a person but they were just wandering back and forth along the water. They didn’t seem to sure footed as the shuffled up the beach a few feet, then back down a few more feet. In our drunken state, we started to get a little loud and bolder with our comments. Cracking jokes at the expense of a silhouette in the distance.

“Maybe he’s drunk.”

“Maybe he’s lost.”

“Maybe he’s a zombie!”

Soon, we started rolling with the idea and eventually, one of our more adventurous, and inebriated of the group decided to walk down to see which this person was. We watched as he walked down the walkway and onto the beach, disappearing from sight. A few seconds later we caught sight of him in the moonlight walking along the dunes to a set of benches right by the ramp up from the beach. We laughed as he just took it upon himself to sit on the bench and blend into the scenery. Then… it happened.

The shape turned and moved its way up to the bench. Then it disappeared. Then nothing. No sound could be heard except for the surf. The dunes blocked our view of the scene. Minutes went by with no word, no movement, no sounds.

What if it IS a zombie? What if our guy is a midnight snack? Our missing member of the group, now gone from view for more than five minutes elicited a few four letter words from his drunk wife, my sister-in-law. She made it a plan to go after him and kick his ass for being gone so long. I looked at my wife and said, “Should I go?” She nodded and I went with her.

As we walked along the deck and down to the beach, my mind raced with the possibilities. “I have no weapons. If this is a zombie, what am I going to do? What if our guy is now one, too?” As we trudged up the beach to the benches, my sister-in-law began yelling for her husband. He then let out a scream. For a brief moment, I panicked. Then, his flashlight began bouncing around playfully and we knew all was well.

“Hey, this here is Luke. He’s legally blind. He’s just waiting for his sister and his girlfriend to arrive.”

How’s he going to know it’s them? Anyway, turns out, he was standing down at the water, just playing his guitar and wandering around, while waiting for his group to arrive. They were from New York. They were staying a few houses back. They weren’t the ones who called the cops on us. They weren’t zombies. We sat and chatted for a few minutes and I contemplated running up to the house screaming of zombies but I was too tired and had too much to drink to navigate the steps while running. I finally heard my wife calling from back at the house and gave them the all clear with the flashlight.

Eventually, all was well and all of our group was back in the house ready for some shut eye after a wonderful, wild, wet evening. Hopefully, Legally Blind Luke managed to see his sister’s truck and make it back to his house before the zombies made their way up the beach.

Travellers Tales 2012: Where the Rubber Meets the Surf

We got lost. We had most of Currituck County Emergency Services show up for a BBQ. And now, in a further effort to get the Coast Guard to show up on our beach trip, we decided to tempt fate and go out to dinner after Coastal Flooding warnings were issued.

Usually, we choose to go out for dinner one night of the week, while staying in the four wheel drive section. It’s an opportunity to gorge ourselves on the awesomeness that is Captain George’s of Kill Devil Hills. It’s also an opportunity to stock up on any dwindling supplies we have at the house; like beer, or fire extinguishers, or… beer.

However, due to some inclement weather on Monday, namely rain, and cooler temperatures on Tuesday, we decided to go a day early and spend more of the day in the paved areas. Now, I had already looked at the tide chart for Wednesday, our usual travel day. It had high tide at around 9:57 PM. I did not pay attention to Tuesday’s chart.  I guessed it was somewhere around 9:00 PM. Since the weather wasn’t nice enough to get in the water at the beach and the air around the pool was in the 70s, we decided to leave extra early, for a 5:00 seating time.

Driving down the beach during low tide is usually nice. There are plenty of flat surfaces; packed down pretty good. There is lots of room to drive with no fear of having to play chicken with the jacked up late 80s model Ford truck belonging to the guy that lives back in the woods with baby doll heads up on posts. (True story. We have pictures somewhere.) Basically, driving is great, going down the beach.

And after a fulfilling meal of four pairs of crab legs, shrimp, pasta, hush puppies, carrot cake, and flan, you find yourself not wanting to make a concerted effort to get your ass back up the beach. Still, since we left early, it was only 7:45 PM. We still needed to go to the Food Lion in Corolla, which takes forever, so we tried our best hustle/waddle through the store.

Some of our group went on ahead and called to warn us that the tide had showed up a little early. Apparently, Coastal Flooding warnings increase the tide’s reach, even when high tide is still an hour away. That, or high tide is the highest the tide will be and the hour previous to that is just slightly lower and is still a bitch.

So, we headed back up the beach and where we usually turn off the road to enter the beach, we entered water. It was indeed high. Now, it’s not too bad if you are the only one driving on the beach at high tide. However, it seems that a lot of other people had not looked at the tide chart or heeded the warnings and were making a hasty retreat to the paved road. We had to squeeze by a couple of tour groups on the way back.

Then, we met the worst obstacle on the beach, The Laughing Gull. The Laughing Gull mocks you at high tide. Basically, the Laughing Gull is this pre-Clinton Administration house that sits out into the beach about miles up. The supports literally sit in the water at high tide. You cannot drive around them without a jacked up late 80s model Ford truck belonging to the guy that lives back in the woods with baby doll heads up on posts. So, you have to go around on the interior roads.

Now, even though the beach road can be rough during high tide, the back roads are worse after it rained the day before. I think a soccer mom in her SUV got lost in one of the puddles. We kept having to go so long, and then turn around and come back.  Finally, we came back down onto the beach at around the 18 mile mark and went another mile and a half to 19.5 where we knew we had a straight shot right back to our house.

We made it home just before dark and my wife could unclench her pucker.

So, for all you travellers who plan to take on the foul wheel drive section.  Remember, check the tide charts before you head out, a puddle may be deeper than you think, and that guy shuffling back and forth along the water line after dark may or may not be a zombie...

Stay tuned for the answer to that.

Travellers Tales 2012: The Adventure Continues

There are probably some of you out there wondering why I keep going back to the Outer Banks every year.  "Oh, how boring." You must think.  And in most cases you could be right.   We aren't a very adventurous bunch.  We pack up the Jeep, drive the same route every year, stay in the four wheel drive section, sit on the beach, eat too much, and then come home.  Well, tough shit.  That's my idea of a relaxing vacation.  However, this year proved to be the exception and I will spend the next few posts giving you the play by play.

First off, the trip down.

"Boring!"

Not necessarily.  I decided... well, it was decided for me, that we would try to avoid the DC Beltway at all costs.   Last year, Matilda, our self named GPS in the Commander tried to kill us by telling us to take an immediate right into the Jersey barrier on the Beltway.   So, I took some advice from a coworker who avoids the Beltway by going through Berkley Springs, WV.  It took some doing, but I managed to get Google to calculate my route through Breezewood and around the Beltway.  I had to add Berkley Springs as a destination in order to get it to correctly route around DC.

My father-in-law drove to Breezewood and then I took over for the next leg.  We came down through Berkley Springs and my wife read off the directions.  Since Matilda started yelling at us to get back on 70, we shut her off.   What did she know?  She tried to kill us last year.  Unfortunately, so my wife tried to do it to us, this year.

She made a slight miscalculation that led us on a wild and wonderful tour of the back roads of West Virginia.  While on 522, she misread a turn that said take route 9 and stay on it for 137 miles.  What she didn't realize was that the trip up to that point was  137 miles and that the added destination of Berkley Springs causes the trip to total up mileage to that point.  So, we stayed on 9 headed towards Paw Paw. 

For the next hour we drove around bends, up hills, around deer, and through the dark, listening for banjos.  At one point a sign with the speed limit posted at 55 mph was sitting about ten feet in front of a sign for a sharp turn.  "Are these people nuts?"   After realizing we were headed West and probably not far from Kentucky, we turned Matilda back on and started calling her Siri.  She seemed to agree with that and started leading us out of the wilderness onto route 522.

We used the printed directions sparingly and followed Siri's lead all the way to the Outer Banks.  No tractor trailers on fire causing another hour delay, no broke down cars causing a twenty minute delay.  From then on, it was smooth sailing.

Next up; why all good vacation stories should include the phrase, "And then the cops showed up".

WUMF: May 2012 Edition

Keerriiiist! It’s almost June. How the ‘eff did that happen? Well, can’t stop time. So, here’s another WUMF!

Top 25 Musical Performances Reprise
Last week I put up my list for the most iconic musical performances in non-musical films.   Well, I screwed up and omitted perhaps one of the most iconic ones.   So, I'll be fixing that.  Let's just say, I was trying to block it out of my head... the Gene Kelly, the fake nose, the codpiece.

Sgt. Hulka Still Hurts
Awhile back, around the first weekend of May, I tweaked my foot cutting grass. I got an X-ray a couple of weeks ago and it showed nothing. I do not have a broken foot. I do not have gout. My doctor says I need new shows. I am just about at wits end.

They put me on an ant-inflammatory which isn’t the best thing on my stomach, one of the only things next to Rum, Vodka, Gin, or Tequila. Now, it’s numb but still noticeable. However, I am feeling much better about it going to the beach…

Going to the beach
Yeah, we are headed back to the OBX here real soon. Another trip into the 4x4 section. This year we managed to snag an oceanfront home for relatively the same cost per couple that we had last year. This one even has an elevator. Very nice.

I am a bit wary though as we are going a different route that was suggested to me by a coworker. I have been a beltway bomber for quite a number of years, so veering away from DC and going the Berkley Springs route is new to me. I’ve heard it’s beautiful. I just don’t want to hear the banjos stop playing... if you catch my drift.

The Banjos Stopped Playing
Everyone kept talking about watching The Hatfields and McCoys on The History Channel. Apparently, it blew away a lot of reality shows in the ratings. That’s pretty amazing, considering it’s the History Channel. However, some folks have talked about how bad the production was from the acting below the three recognizable leads to the lack of realism in the furnishings of the 19th century era old Kentucky homes.

Seems a bit odd that the Hatfields and McCoys had good dental hygiene in the backwoods of West Virginia and Kentucky.

What Else Seems Odd
The Cincinnati Reds are in town to play the Buccos and a strange story came out of the hotel room of Aroldis Chapman. While he was at the game, a 26 year old woman by the name of Claudia Manrique was in his room at the Omni William Penn, as a guest. A man came to the door, claiming to be there to fix the toilet. Later, she was found bound and screaming in the room, which had been robbed. She was interviewed by police and then released. She left the station with a towel over her head and got into a car with a man and woman with Maryland plates.

She met Chapman two months ago in DC and yet she was released and left with a man who police said was her husband. Hmmm. She also left with full knowledge of how to avoid photos… as if she had done it before… hmmm.

Nothing strange here.



Something Strange Here
This has truly been a strange week. A pig on the parkway. A zombie in Florida. Bovines in Boxford crashing a party. Some guy stabbed himself fifty times and threw his intestines at police. And someone in Canada decided to mail body parts around. Didn’t he know that you should group your shipments to save on postage?

If shit blows up while I’m at the beach, I’m staying there. Getting a little weird around here.

WUMF: June Edition

Is it summer, already? Is it the end of June, already? Is it time for another WUMF, already? Yes x 3.

The Beach
At the beginning of the month I went to the OBX and I promise a longer post about being in the 4 x 4 section. Needless to say, if you have plans to go on vacation and you have a four wheel drive vehicle, check out Carova Beach. You won’t be disappointed.

Jagrwatch
What the hell is happening in Pittsburgh? The Pirates are a game over .500 and there is a possibility that Jaromir Jagr could play for the Penguins. There’s also still a lockout. If blood starts flowing out of the point, and pigeons fall from the sky, I wouldn’t be surprised. Actually, I don’t even know when the point fountain is going to be back on. I drive within sight of it every day and the last time I saw water in the fountain was when we were underwater back in the end of winter. Anyways, the whole thing with Jagr is nuts. He’s got an offer from Detroit. Does he? He’s got an offer from Pittsburgh. Has he accepted?

His plane got diverted from landing at JFK by fornicating turtles. Apparently, there was around 100 turtles on the runway, getting it on. Airport staff moved them and then the TSA detained four of them for brandishing ninja like weapons. [sing songy] Teenage Humping Runway Turtles, effing at the airport, for an hour [/sing songy]


2011 Angry Mongo Summer Giveaway
A couple of weeks ago, I ran a giveaway through my store blog. It was a summer themed contest sparked by the notion that summer is now here and it’s time to enjoy the BBQ and vacation and the warm weather. Well, those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, anyway. So, I dug into the movie vault and found three classics; One Crazy Summer, The Great Outdoors, and Meatballs. I threw in a shirt, inspired by one of the movies. I lightly placed a Doodle Speaker with the M.A.M.S logo in the box along with some other goodies and announced to the world that the #AngryMongoSummer giveaway was on like Donkey Kong.

After a week of tweeting, posting, and commenting about their favorite vacation spots, the list of entries was narrowed down to one random winner. Joby Franczek, also known as The Bald Fat Guy on the interwebs was my big winner and should soon be getting his care package. Thanks for entering and congratulations.

S#!t My Kid Says
I’m fat. I get it. I’ve been trying to knock off the pounds and I still haven’t forgot my little counter up there. Still working on it. However, once in awhile, my kid reminds me of how much I dwarf her in size. After work, one day, I was in my bedroom getting changed into my comfortable attire and was just finishing on putting on a pair of shorts. I didn’t so much as struggle to button them as I gently fastened them as to not rip the button right off of the shorts. My kid seeing me do this, looks at me while I’m holding my breath and says, “Daddy, is that hard to do?”
“Yes, dear, it is. That is why you don’t get a third glass of bunny milk.” (Nestle Quik)





That’s all I got for this month. Rock on!

Smoke On the Water

Dare County, North Carolina has been suffering through a wild fire that has affected the coastal areas of the Outer Banks as well.  Officials say they have the blaze around 75% contained but heavy smoke and the smell of burning wood is evident in places like Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills.

Stumpy Point, NC is about 30 miles from Nags Head, NC, across the Croatan Sound, but the winds can shift causing the smoke to envelope the Wright Brothers' Memorial in a thick and ashy cloud of haze.  

A server at Captain George's Restaurant said that the winds shift often leaving the skies clear and then they can cloud back up again at the drop of a hat.

Being in the 4x4 section has saved us from the smoke and respiratory issues facing some of the vacationers in the Southern Shores and Nags Head area.  That would pretty much suck to come all this way and have it be smokey. 

I'll be back with more tales of the beach including what it takes to go into the 4x4 section.  It's really been fun.

Bittersweet Nights In Corolla Light

In case you were wondering where I was last week, and I’m sure you pulled out all the stops looking for me like I was Abby Sunderland, take comfort in knowing that I was on vacation. Perhaps you’re not taking comfort and instead are taking out a hit on me for flaunting that I was able to do such a thing. In either case, I’m back and semi ready to resume boring you to death with useless stories. However, among these trite posts hides little nuggets of wisdom like corn in your… never mind.

So, once again, I travelled to the Outer Banks for a much needed yet hardly attainable vacation. If you recall my lengthy diatribe last year, Nights In South Rodanthe, you’ll probably want to skip to the end or go back the way you came. Yet, I will try to minimize the muck and show some brevity of dimwit. Yeah, right.

The trip this year was bittersweet.  Last year's trip to Avon marked the first vacation my in laws had ever really taken.  It was also the first time my mother-in-law had seen the ocean in real life.  Sadly, it was also the last time.  I've mentioned it before but the last night we were there, the two of us finished off the last of the frozen custard we bought at a place in Buxton.  We sort of bonded over a bowl of some of the best I'd ever had.   I asked her if she had a good time and she said she did. I asked her if she understood why people did all this work for a week’s worth of beach time and she said, “No.” I laughed and agreed with her.  I don’t know why either.  I still haven't talked much about her dying and I'm not really ready to do that post.  As it was, we were finalizing plans for this year's trip at the end of March and she died the week after Easter.   She was looking forward to going back and really liked the house we picked.    I was looking forward to getting another quart of custard and shooting the breeze again.  I didn't have any this year and that seems right to me.  if you knew me, you'd be apalled at my missing out on such a great treat.  Maybe next year.

SOUNDS FAR FROM PERFECT
Instead of staying in Avon, this year, we headed North to Corolla, again. I say again because I stayed there in 2005 during Hurricane Ophelia. Ironic in that the storm was named after a character who drowned. Nice. Anyway, After dealing with some company in 2005, that I cannot recall at the moment, and having issues with Sun Realty, last year concerning the pool heat and them calling me a liar and trying to keep my money, I decided to go with a different outfit called Outer Banks Blue. I had a few places in mind with different companies including Sun Realty because we really liked the house we had last year in Avon, even with all the issues. Unfortunately, the new owners of the house put in minimal updates and raised the rental price $1000 for the same week as we had last year. Regardless, I kept a few properties on the back burner and played them against each other in the pricing game.

The one nice thing about Outer Banks Blue was that they gave you the final cost upfront and the house we were looking at was in the Corolla Light Town Center section with access to the various amenities such as free beach parking, use of the pools, playgrounds, and basketball and tennis courts as well as a shuttle that could take us to and from the beach. The bad thing was that they did not check their listing very well against the house. Granted, it wasn’t the end of the world in terms of inaccuracies on their part but it did end up influencing my vote on which house to go with in the end. Still, even after I brought it to their attention they neglected to fix the listing. Here is the listing for the house. In case they do finally fix it, here is a screenshot of what the listing said when I booked the house, rented the house, lived in the house, and wrote this post the week after I left the house.

Like I said, a minor inconvenience for most people. But when I could have had an awesome house on a golf course or a place we called the Taj Mahal for the same price with wireless access, it makes me a little miffed. Since, I like to keep up with the important things like, you know, my email, shirt shops, [muffled voice] mafia and farm [/muffled voice], it’s nice to be able to get up and make the little one some breakfast and surf the web while she watches Dino Train or Sid the Science Kid in the same room. When I have to go to a whole other floor to be jacked into a three foot cable just to get a connection it becomes counterproductive.

I knew within minutes that there was no router but acted ignorant of the fact when I called the office. I asked how I went about making the wifi work. She said she wasn’t sure but would send someone out to check on it. When the guy arrived he said there was no wireless and called back to the office. Now, you can always tell when someone is going to try and pull one over on you. I learned that from the experience with the pool heater last year. When this guy first mentioned to the other person on the phone that he was at the house that used to belong to Village and that I was standing right there, the plan fell apart. I had already heard enough to figure out what happened. I had also found a journal left by the owners giving basic instructions and tips along with guest comments and all mentioned Village Realty. I put it all together and when he got off the phone, I said to the guy, “Let me guess. Outer Banks Blue acquired this property from Village Realty and just copied and pasted the listing, not bothering to check if they had kept the router?” He sheepishly looked at me and said, “Yep.”

He told me to contact the manager and discuss it. Frankly, I was tired of fighting with people for stupid stuff. It wasn’t the end of the world and figured, “OK, no wireless. Business will have to wait until I can get time. I’m on vacation for crissakes!” Instead of fighting for refunds or principles, I’ll just vote with my wallet and go somewhere else… and blog the whole experience so that other consumers can be sure to check on these things before they rent houses. I’m still a prick, first and foremost, I’ve just decided to use other methods to deal with issues. After working for almost ten years in a customer service capacity, I’ve learned that losing a customer can be more expensive that properly dealing with an issue. If it were my company, I would have taken the opportunity to reach out to the customer, proactively, and offered an apology and even made a deal to offer them some kind of discount, whether it be a gift card to the local grocery stores or a discount on a repeat stay the next summer. But then again, that’s why I am not in charge of anything.

EATING OUT
My sister-in-law decided to stay in the 4X4 section in Carova. It’s a bit hairy getting up there but pretty awesome to drive out onto the beach and see wild horses. Although, the bugs are pretty big and I think I saw one of them carrying a small child away. You also have to plan your schedule around the tides and nightfall. This can play havoc for you if you like to eat out or visit with the rest of your group who decided to minivan it in the paved sections of the OBX. For us, we managed to get out a total of four times for dinner.

Fat Crabs Rib Company, Corolla, NC
For a little joint in the shopping plaza next to Corolla Light I was impressed. It’s kind of like picnic table and chair fair with cold cases set up for grabbing a drink out of at your table. I had the pulled pork sandwich and it was pretty darn good. My father-in-law had the crab and was impressed. The hush puppies were pretty damn good to. I give the place three out of five stars for food quality.

Jimmy’s Seafood Buffet, Kitty Hawk, NC
I can remember the Bonfire restaurant in Ocean City, MD as being my first taste of seafood buffet indulgence. I went there with a couple of friends and we spent three hours just eating. I think we may have taken a power nap in between trips to the buffet. At the end of the meal we probably had 20 or so plates stacked on the table. My one friend then defiled the experience by getting drunk and throwing up in the middle of the night. “$20 worth of prime rib, down the toilet” was the quote the next day. That was 1995, I believe. $20 for all you care to eat prime rib, crab legs, seafood, pasta, desert, etc. 15 years later, I still remembered that quote as I got my bill from Jimmy’s. $28.95 for the buffet. On that buffet, ten types of crab legs, seafood of different kinds, pasta, meats, and desert.

However, compared to other places, I was a bit disappointed. I had heard of some bad reviews online but was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. First off, expect a wait. It is the big name buffet in the OBX. However, to pass the time with the impatient kiddies, there are free pony rides out back. Once we got in, we were cramped into a nook near the bar that had a five foot high wall separating us from the main flow of traffic. Together with two tables, placed perpendicular to us at the front of the nook, we felt a bit trapped. It took some tactical planning to effectively make trips to the buffet and not have to make everyone move for you to get back into the corner. For as big and as busy as this place was I would have expected bigger bathrooms, but unfortunately, they were one man bands.

The food was pretty decent. I ate a ton of food and at least four sets of crab legs. I stuck to the Alaskan but if I ever go back will try the big spiny ones as well. I was eyeing up the Russian, King, and Dungeness as I picked up a second helping of Alaskan.

Overall, I give it three stars but I would suggest getting there early if you have to drive back to the 4X4 section. Also, they just opened up a location in Ocracoke last year, I think. That may be a hell of a lot nicer place to visit but you have to go by boat and once again, plan accordingly.

Captain George’s, Kill Devil Hills, NC
If you’re heading East on 158… which feels like South, and you’ve just passed the Wright Brothers’ Memorial, it’s on the left. I highly, HIGHLY, recommend going there. For the same price as Jimmy’s you don’t get the ten types of crab legs, but you get awesome food, service, and a bit of ritz. The OBX location is brandy new and if you are familiar with the Virginia Beach location, it’s a bit of a departure. I’ve been the one in Virginia a few times and I liked it. It looks like an old sailing ship, akin to Pirates of the Caribbean, on the inside. The new one in the OBX might as well be called Captain Trump’s because the inside is pretty classy looking. The servers and bus staff wear those floor length apron things and they keep clearing your table as you eat. Believe me, they are on top of things. The food was excellent. I had four sets of crab legs, all Alaskan, hush puppies that were pretty good, and the best G’Dam corn bread I’ve ever eaten. It’s in muffin form for easier picking and believe me, you’ll want more than one. They also had the one thing I love, that was missing from Jimmy’s, Seafood Norfolk. That’s pretty much a hodgepodge of crab bits, shrimp and scallops drowned in butter. I had two helpings of that. The deserts were excellent and I cannot complain about driving a half hour from Corolla to get there. We went at the same time as we did for Jimmy’s and walked right in and sat down.

Kill Devil's Frozen Custard, Kill Devil Hills, NC
And if you are already in Kill Devil Hills, try some of the best frozen custard around as well as hot dogs, fries.  The last time I stayed in Corolla, which was 2005, I happened upon this place with my wife while looking for some frozen custard.  It is truly awesome.  I take frozen custard very seriously.

Uncle Eddie's Frozen Custard, Buxton, NC
If you happen to be on Pea Island and near the Cape Hatteras Light, run up to Buxton and get some Uncle Eddie's.   We bought it in quarts last year and on our last night there, we had to finish it up.  It was a nice little moment between myself and my late mother-in-law.  It still gets me thinking about having that conversation about her first trip to the beach.

Route 12 Steak and Seafood Company, Corolla, NC
We wanted to stick close to home our last night and we knew that driving to Duck would take an extra 15 minutes so we tried something different. Right in Corolla, at the TimBuck II shopping plaza is this little joint. It’s pretty small inside but that wasn’t a problem. They have a limited menu and it’s all pretty fancy and high priced. I will recommend the pasta marinara as my wife and daughter both liked it. I had the Seafood Fra Diavolo. That’s noodles with lobster, shrimp, and scallops mixed in with a spicy tomato based sauce. It was excellent. The scallops were about half the size of hockey pucks and tender as all get out. There was no rubbery texture at all.

Fishbone’s Sunset Grille and Raw Bar, Duck, NC
We tried this place out in 2005 and liked it. The menu is a bit on the spicy side but you have the opportunity to eat out on the deck of the sound and watch the sunset. I honestly cannot remember what I ate but it was pretty good and I would eat there again. It was a backup plan for our last night but we didn’t want to have to drive the extra fifteen minutes into Duck to go there and wait. And you will wait for a bit.

Other than that, we didn’t do much else. I climbed the top of the Currituck Light and after climbing Hatteras Light I can say this one seemed harder to do. The view is pretty cool. You can see the sound and the ocean and it’s a bit of a disappointment to see how built up the area is getting in Corolla. Soon, it will be just as crowded as Nags Head. Staying in Corolla has the potential to appear pretentious but honestly, it’s a hell of a lot quieter and relaxing than Avon was. The only drawback is the one way in and out on Route 12. There are talks of putting in a short cut which would consist of a bridge to Corolla from the mainland. I’d like it but I’d hate to see that drive more people into the area. There’s already concern of overdeveloping the 4X4 area which is the last place to see the Wild Mustangs of the Outer Banks. They have a huge fence up at the end of Route 12 to keep them north and it would be sad to see them driven even further from their natural habitat. The other piece of advice I’ll give about staying up in Corolla. Leave early. It took us nearly two hours to get to the Border Station in Moyock. A majority of the rentals end on Saturday so expect there to be a lot of traffic on 12 and 158. In fact we were stop and go almost all the way on 64 until we reached the tunnel.

All the issues aside, I’ll be back next year and with more tales of Mongo in the wild. Have a great summer.

Ballad of the Bud Under the Bed

The house as it looked in 1987

Somewhere outside of Virginia Beach, in the community of Sandbridge, located in a house on Bluebill Dr, sits a can of Budweiser, 22 years past its expiration date, underneath a sofa bed. It sounds unlikely, but I’d like to think that it is still there waiting for me to return one day to drink it. I know the truth of the matter is that the can was probably discarded not long after that fateful week in 1987 when my friend and I stole it.

I was just 12 years old and the both of us were determined to get wasted. Our families had rented this house for the week and my friend and I shared the bottom floor bedroom that consisted of a bathroom and a sofa bed. We were no stranger to sharing living quarters as we had both spent a week, the previous year, in another house in the same community.

The seeds of anarchy and delinquency may have been planted the previous summer, over quiet discussions in our room. I remember a blaring radio playing the Beatles cover of "Twist and Shout", which had become popular again thanks to Ferris Beuller’s Day Off and Back to School. We may have used the noise from the radio to mask our strategic plotting, though I don’t remember the specifics. In any case, we were ready to spring our plan into action this year as we had the bottom floor all to ourselves. We could come and go as we pleased, just by sneaking out the front door. We could escape into the night and do the things that kids our age do out and about in the summertime night like walk around and wonder, “Okay, now what?”

But we didn’t. We were committed to the task. Our plan was simple and only had four goals.

1. Steal a beer from our parents’ stash in the upstairs fridge.


2. Hide it in our room until we were able to consume it without getting caught.


3. Get drunk like adults did.


4. Gain some insight into adulthood, letting the mysteries of the universe reveal themselves.

That’s what we thought would happen. At our age, we figured that there had to be some all important reason to consume alcoholic beverages. We were warned against it as children, yet I can remember on occasion my Father would sit me on his lap and let me sip small quantities from his can, much to my Mother’s dismay. In fact, there is a much recalled incident at family gatherings about a time when my whole family was kicked out of a Lum’s restaurant, because my Father gave my brother a tiny sip of beer. Surely, there was some cosmic conspiracy over this act and we were about to find out why.

First we had to take a look at our surroundings. The house provided just the right amount of concealment for our plan to go off without a hitch. Coming through the front door you could turn right into the garage or turn left up a spiral staircase to the main floor. Going straight would lead you into our room. Actually, the house was quite nice. From what I remember it was a house that might have belonged to the realtor and had just been put on the market as a rental. It wasn’t on the ocean and in fact it was on the opposite side of a canal that fed into Shipps Bay. We had a paddle boat docked at the back and an in ground pool, complete with deep end and diving board to entertain us. Now we had an additional part to our plan. Get drunk and go swimming. The reckless abandon, by which we had conspired to be bad, was astounding.

Early into the week we managed to complete step one of our dastardly deed. It was a quiet evening and while our families were swimming or otherwise distracted, we snuck a can of Budweiser from the fridge. Racing back down to our room, we needed to conceal the contraband. We couldn’t proceed to step three since it was still early in the evening, so we halted at step two by placing the can underneath the sofa bed. It was easily accessible, yet undetectable to the naked eye. When the time was right we would continue with Operation Inebriation.

During the rest of the week we continued to enjoy our time at the beach, always keeping a thought towards our plan. There were two instances when we almost cracked open that can, prematurely. “No,” we thought. We had to wait for the right moment. It was like one of those 80s adventure computer games. We were given an object that could only be used once and at the appropriate time. When the time was right, we would know it. Until then, maintain appearances, don’t let on what we had done and don’t tell anyone else. That meant keeping secrets from the other kids in our group that were also vacationing at the beach but at different houses. Holding onto that secret was at times exhilarating and also excruciating. We had this forbidden object just inches from where we slept at night that could elevate our cool factor into the stratosphere and yet we feared telling them because they might inadvertently blab to an adult. That would have been instant death to our plan and us, for that matter. Still, we kept visible within the circle of friends and went about our week.

Our friends were staying in houses right on the beach and even though we had the pool, they had the view. Actually, the one had a great view of the house directly across the street. The only other guy friend our age was staying at this huge house directly across the street from a place with two girls. We had come over for the last night of our vacation for a group dinner. We found our friend hanging out on the topmost deck, plugged into his walkman, blasting Def Leppard’s "Hysteria." It had just been released that month and he was already wearing it out something fierce. He didn’t even notice us sneaking up on him. When he did acknowledge us we asked him what he had been up to and his response was, “Watching some girl show me her underwear.” We both did a double take and then looked across the street at the house facing us. There, in front bedroom, were two girls waving at us and making silly body movements.

My partner in crime and I looked at each other in agreement. Those girls could share in our plan. We could have a party. We didn’t exactly know what we could do. I mean I had grown up watching stolen HBO, so I kind of knew what this all meant. I never actually imagined being in a position that resembled it, though. I began to think this could actually be the best vacation ever. We had an in with the girls. Just get them to come down and talk with us and we could let them in on our plan to get drunk. The beer was still sitting, hidden, in our room at the house. We could all sneak away and hang out at our place and go night swimming. It had to have been the best plan ever thought of by a 12 year old in the history of adolescence.

We quickly started making the universal sign for hello by flailing our hands around like we had no bones in our arms. They continued to duck down behind the balcony wall, holding up an errant bra that they had brought with them from their room. A bra, regardless of being removed from the person twirling around, was still like catnip to a teenager. We continued to use semaphore like movements to try and signal them down to the beach. Eventually, they got the hint when they saw us descend the staircase from our balcony and sneak across the street to their side. Not wanting to alert the adults, we snuck around the outside of their house in a wide circle. We ended up on the beach about a hundred feet from the steps up to their house and then ran all the way to meet them.

“Hey.” We said, out of breath.

“Hey,” They said, not knowing what to make of this rag tag bunch of misfits before them.

“So, like how old are you?” Good. Good. Establish a baseline. We don’t want to give alcohol to them if they are too young to handle it. Of course, everyone knows that the constitution of a 12 year old far outweighs one of a ten year old.

“I’m twelve and she’s thirteen” One of them said.

“Excellent,” I thought. Being the youngest of the three guys, I felt a sort of inclusion into the group with the confirmation of one of the girls being the same age as myself. I was worried that, if they were older than me, I would not stand a chance competing with my older, wiser friends. Yet, I still held the ace in my pocket…or more to the point; underneath the sofa bed at our house, a couple miles away.

We conversed for a little while longer, not wanting to draw attention to ourselves from inside the house. I feverishly searched for a way to introduce the idea of going back to our place for a late night swim and beer bash. However, they admitted that it was time for them to go. Alas, the opportunity never presented itself to include them in our scheme and they disappeared forever, another footnote in the annuals of summer flings that almost were. But we didn’t dwell on the matter. We had bigger fish to fry.

After dinner, my friend and I returned to our house and began to pack up our things. We knew what lay in store for us and didn’t want to have to try packing after our long night of consumption. We thought it best to get everything out of the way, freeing us from performing tasks that required dexterity and balance the next morning.

Being the last night in the house, we thought it appropriate to give the pool one last swim and spent a couple hours that the night contemplating our place in the universe while doing cannonballs off the diving board.

The eleventh hour had drawn on and we retired to our room. We decided to try and stay up as late as possible, outlasting our parents. We didn’t want them to come down and check on us in our drunken state. We took turns manning the staircase outside our room, keeping watch for adults or nosy siblings. Soon, the house went quiet and we too had ultimately just collapsed from sheer exhaustion. The heavy meal, the late night rendezvous and jog up the beach, as well as the swim was the final nail in our coffin, taking every last ounce of energy we had left.

The next morning brought on the hustle and bustle of packing up cars and checking on rooms to make sure nothing remained. We insisted to our parents that we had checked our room completely and that nothing was left behind. Neither one of us had a moment to snag the beer from under the sofa and stick it in our bags. We figured, if anything, we could transport it home and then sneak out to the park one night and finish what we had started. Unfortunately, we had no chance to stealthily slip the suds into our sacks and it remained behind like a fallen soldier in combat. The battle was lost. The opportunity missed. The beer left under the sofa bed, in the house on Bluebill Dr., in the community of Sandbridge, just outside of Virginia Beach, sat like a testament to what might have been.

While we may have only met two of our goals that summer, we took that first step towards being initiated into adulthood. As teens, a stolen beer is a rite of passage. It's intoxicating just to take it, undetected, not knowing that first stolen beers are usually nasty and warm and really don't do much for you other than make you sick. Those last two goals were a fictional representation of what we held in our minds as absolute truths in life.

It wasn’t until 22 years later that I finally understood the fourth goal. Yet, I confess, I never completed it. The mysteries of the universe were still that to me, a mystery. I still don’t understand why we thought that one beer would be enough to get us both drunk. I still don’t understand how we were going to travel, on foot, to a house somewhere in a two mile radius from our position that night. Neither of us bothered to pay attention to directions. Perhaps those are mysteries that only a kid can understand. Kids still believe in their immortality and the awesome power of a summer vacation giving them wisdom. Kids are kings among pessimists, always thinking that the future is bright and go on forever, like a sandy beach in summer.

The house as it looks today, 2009

End Of Transmission

I’m sitting here at a McDonald’s located inside a Wal Mart, wrapped around an enigma. Now, you might say, “What moron brings a laptop to Wal Mart to write a blog post?” The kind that has let his oil change go way over due and has to sit and wait forever for them to get stains all over my upholstery and overcharge him for the service. Yeah, it’s like $25 for a basic oil change, now. I remember when the high end service was $18. Also, they don’t overhead page which sends me to the bullpen of expectant car owners waiting for them to call them. Finally, they removed the garbage cans from around the door. I had a lot of empty water bottles to add to the crack pipes and heroin needles usually found in the overflowing garbage can. But that’s not what this post is about. No. No.

I need a new car…another one. You see, the Malibu Maxx, which is getting violated by the grease monkey with long bearded and wool cap with the tassels hanging down like a Hasidic Hippie, is running fine. It’s my other car that has shit the bed. It’s a 99 Sunfire with about 70,000 miles on it. It’s an R-Title that I picked up from my wife’s grandmother. It’s paid for and has already lost air conditioning, the radio knob, and a considerable amount of paint on the passenger’s side front quarter panel. It’s the one that I just dropped $500 on getting new brakes, a brake line, tires, and rotors. It’s also the one that has had a transmission rebuilt on it in 2002. Well, guess what just went?

I was actually having a great day. Work was going well. I was feeling accomplished. I was heading home to play with my daughter, do some shirts for my CafePress store and maybe fit in a little Wii before dinner. I was coming up my hill and something happened. Next thing I know, the RPMs went up and the speedometer went down. That’s never a good sign when you’re in gear on a steep hill. I managed to stick it in neutral and drift back into a driveway. Then after generally cursing everything around me, I called my wife, who was teaching piano at the time and she sent her Father down to retrieve me. I was 50 feet from my driveway. How much does that suck? I couldn’t leave it where it was, so I turned the wheels and let gravity drag me down the hill. In all my cursing, I managed to thank the heavens for Isaac Newton. I maneuvered the car into a parking lot which doesn’t allow overnight parking and explained my case to the owners.

I called the father of one my wife’s students who happens to work at a garage and has done some side work for me in the past. He towed the car to the house and it’s now sitting in my driveway while I figure out my next move. Being a holiday weekend, it’s hard to get anything accomplished. I tried putting some transmission fluid in but that didn’t seem to help. I’ve noticed that the tranny was slipping but thought it was just merely age. Now, I have until Tuesday to figure something out because my wife needs a car for work.

They say that now is the best time to buy a car. There are deals out the wazoo and dealers are looking to move inventory. I still have to pay off the Malibu, which is probably yelping as I write, poor thing. I say the best time to buy a car is when you don’t need one. There’s no pressure to buy. There’s no sense of urgency to make a deal and usually when you need to make a huge purchase, everything else comes crashing down around you forcing you into further debt. The law of averages always dictates that whatever can go wrong, will go wrong, and all at once.

My Mother-in-Law just got over brain surgery and as a reward; we are taking her and my Father-in-Law to the Outer Banks their other daughter’s wedding this June. I’ve sunk a lot of money into that. I also just spent $500 of other people’s money on a Wii. I could have used that back. I can only imagine what the rest of April and May hold in store for me and my family. The last thing we need is for a pet to die….oh wait, that happened to my Sister-in-Law over the weekend. I’m liable to buy a car and my air conditioning or furnace may blow up.

Which brings me back to my point, now is the best time for someone to buy a car that doesn’t need it. I remember the last time I bought a car. The head gasket on my 97 Cavalier went in 05 and we needed to replace that car. We knew we were going to be starting a family and planned for that by purchasing a Malibu Maxx wagon during that whole employee pricing bonanza that happened a few years back. Even with the employee pricing we couldn’t get our payment down under $200 a month. I think we were at $207 or something. I’ll never forget it. It was close to nine in the evening and when the salesman gave us that number; my wife looked at him and said, “Nope.” He was shocked. “You’re going to walk away over $10?” She said, “Yeah.” She’s the bad cop. It’s a good thing. He came back with less than $200 and with our GM card rewards we managed to knock it a few dollars more to $193. The poor guy was twitching when we drove off the lot. Still, I felt sad saying goodbye to my Cavalier. That thing got me through a lot of good times and bad over the seven years. I still miss it in some ways.

With this Sunfire, it’s a different story. I’ve always had a small amount of dislike for Pontiacs. My first car was an 84 Firebird with flip up headlights. I loved that car. For a 17 year old, it was awesome to have this Mullet Mobile to drive around. Then the transmission went out, oddly enough on the hill up to my parents’ house. Then, the electrical system went haywire and I had to constantly switch fuses around to get things to work. I could either have wipers or memory on my radio, interior lights or a horn. I remember being at a Softball game with my high school girlfriend and getting caught in a torrential downpour. There I was, dripping wet, hanging upside down under the dash in the bucket seat flipping fuses around to get wipers. Finally, some guy hit me in a parking lot and put a crease in one of the headlights. Now, all my car could do is wink. I tried to honk the horn and warn him but I didn’t have the correct configuration of fuses for that act. So, the fact that 15 years later, another Pontiac is giving me trouble doesn’t make me want to feel heartbroken when I drive away from it for the last time.

Well, I imagine my car is done and I would have liked to post this from the McDonald’s but I have no Internet access. It’s not Starbucks or Panera, I guess. Maybe, by the time this hits the blog, I will be in a new or used car. But, with my luck, I’m sure I won’t. It’s a holiday weekend and I don’t take chances with the holidays. I’ll wait until next week when the dust has settled.

Endless Summer Nights

Yes. You are not imagining it. That is the title of a cheesy 80's Richard Marx song. Sue me. I like it. It just got to me thinking about the waning days of Summer. Here it is August and it seems as if another Summer has flown by me. I tend not to notice as much as when I was a kid because there was no impending doom of a new school year just on the horizon. As an adult I'm a bit indifferent to the seasons, but I dread the falling of leaves as I have a huge canopy of trees over a majority of my yard. While I like the warmer weather, Pennsylvania Summers are anything but typical. Whether it be Global Warming or a cyclical meteorological shift it seems as if Summer comes later and stays longer than it used to. It's so wonky around here in the Fall and Spring, and for that matter even Winter is atypical. We have warmer weather way into October, snow in May, and all kinds of schizophrenic weather patterns throughout the year.

But when I was young, Summer was magical. Of course it was. I was out of school for three months with little responsibility other than being home when the street lights came on in the evening. We'd get up early, eat breakfast, and we'd be gone all day long. There was no online deathmatch play in Yars Revenge or Pitfall. Atari's didn't have games that would keep you glued to your television screens for hours on end, day after day. We had hide and seek, kick ball, baseball, and war games to keep us busy. And when we went on family vacations, oh joy, it was even more magical. Now, we could play outside on the beach or in the campgrounds. That's where I related the term "Endless Summer Nights." Ok, the song is more about a summer love story. Just stay with me. Eventually, adolescence arrived and the beach became a feast for the eyes with bikinis and tanning. As a teen you noticed everything. Well, looking back now I feel more like Pete Townsend, but you get the idea.

Now, that being said, did you ever have a Summer that you compared all Summers against? Was it one where you met someone and in that short week you felt so many butterflies in your stomach and the smile could hardly be wiped from your face? Was it like the opening to Grease? Did you keep in touch with them with letters and phone calls for as long as possible? Me, too. Unfortunately, with fast approaching middle age, I've begun to lose hold of all the memories that shaped my childhood Summers. But I do recall some. There was a short period of about two years where I went on vacation with a friend and his family to Myrtle Beach. It was like nothing I had even seen before. Long clean beaches, people everywhere, tons of things to do wherever you turned. At first the trip felt as if it was going to be a snooze fest. It was a Saturday and the transition between people leaving and people arriving was at its apogee. We were so bored. By Tuesday I was climbing the walls. We hadn't met any other kids to run around with when I sustained an injury playing basketball in the court at our condo. I sustained that injury because his nearly six foot tall, 160 pound frame stepped on my foot while I was going backwards causing me to hit the pavement from the sudden stop in momentum. Frustrated, I told my friend I needed to just take a walk and clear my head. Really, I was beginning to believe that he was holding me back and that I had a better chance of meeting up with girls on my own. I was an ass, I know. I walked the beach in front of our condo where I happened upon two girls sitting on the railing of some steps. I made the bold and unprecedented decision to just walk up and ask if I could join them. To my shock, they allowed me, and we struck up a conversation. Soon, we were laughing and joking and I was starting to feel a whole lot better.

A few minutes later, a ruckus erupted behind me as a small cavalcade of kids came clamoring out of the condo behind us. It was apparent that these two girls already knew the group which included a handsome young lad which gave me pause. There was no way I was going to be able to compete with this guy. He was too smooth. To my surprise, my lead footed friend numbered among the youths. We put our differences aside as we seemed to have the same idea and joined up with the group forming a posse of mischief makers. From then on, we were all inseparable. We were early to rise and late to bed. We spent hours in the water transitioning from the cool pool of the condo to the surf of the ocean. After dinner with our respective elders, we'd meet up again for more hijinks. Soon, I formed a bond with a girl in the group and I was awed that she didn't set her sights on the sleeker Casanova of our ranks. We talked and laughed and just enjoyed each other's company for the remaining two days of our stay. As we reached the end of our trip, we said our goodbyes and on the morning of our departure, my friend and I wandered the beach in search of signs of life. The girls had left, our friends had left, the beach was empty as the week long beach goers loaded up their wagons and hit the Interstates home. The was a calm quiet that fell over the shore. The surf seemed louder in the silence left by the exodus of tourists. We made our way back to the empty condo and loaded our things into the car for home. As we left our condo we could see the stream of new tourists arriving for their week of fun and sun. Kids exited the vehicles which had held them hostage for hours, stretching a bit before darting off towards the water. The changing of the guard had taken place. A new set of memories were about to be made. We suddenly felt as if we were as old as the sea watching with a far off twinkle in our eyes.

The trip home was filled with short naps in tune to the sounds of my Walkman. As a new side clicked into play I drifted off into the realm of sleep meant for recollection of memories. I played the week over in my head etching it into my brain. Clutched in one hand was the address of my new friend who I immediately kept in touch with upon arrival home and from then on for a few years. Somehow, the rest of the Summer seemed mundane and uneventful. It was if nothing could compare to that brief adventure at the beach. The only thing that excited me was a new letter and pictures from my friend. But as it always is, the frequency of letters began to diminish and new experiences replace those we held in so high regard. Those memories are relegated to a footnote in our minds or in a blog entry.

Now, I look back and I can barely remember names and faces from that time. I'm sure they've all gone on and had families by now. Perhaps as we watch our kids grow and make memories of their own during a vacation to the beach we remember some of that magic we once felt as kids. During some free time we may do a search on Facebook or Classmates trying to find that person but can't quite remember what city they lived in as a kid or how to spell their last name. Maybe we'll find some small clue that will reconnect us, as adults, to those "Endless Summer Nights."

Post Apocalyptic Pool Hall at the End of the Outer Banks

No, it's not the title of some B grade science fiction movie, this is the recounting of a tale from a few years back. Since we are now full into the summer season according to the public pool schedule, I figure it's time to have old Uncle Mongo give you some advice. I've been taking vacations down in the Carolinas for a few years and I've come to learn a few tricks and tips and I always like to pass them on if I can. First and foremost, never, under any circumstances back up on the beltway around Washington D.C. They don't like that. If you miss your exit, you either take the next exit and double back or it's "Big Ben Parliament, kids." If you have to pass around D.C. in any of your trips, I highly suggest hitting the beltway before dawn or after dinner. Traffic tends to get hairy once everyone heads to or from work. Do not mess with them. These people are professionals and will put you into the barrier without a thought.

If your destination is Myrtle Beach, here are some suggestions to help make your stay enjoyable. With rising costs just about everywhere, you really need to take a look at your priorities. What is important to you on your trip? Do you want a full service hotel to wait on all your needs that costs a lot of money? Do you want to just have some place nice and quaint to sleep at and spend your money on other things? If you want to just have a place that's clean but not full service, I can only suggest one place as I stayed there nearly every single trip I've taken to Myrtle Beach. It's not a flashy, four star joint, but it has clean rooms and it's ocean front for not much cash. It's called The Gazebo Inn. It's right on 16th street South. They are a family hotel so remember a couple of things. They are catering to kids and that means that there will be plenty of them in the pool area. I suggest going there in May or September when the rug rats are in school. I also don't suggest getting a room on the ground floor as it opens into the pool area and can be loud if you are a late morning sleeper. I suggest the Gazebo Room on the third or fifth floor. It's a little more but it comes with better amenities. With Dining there are tons of buffets and Calabash dining, but few actually are great and aren't just a polished turd. Three places I highly suggest.

Crabby Mike's
Angelo's This place is a diamond in the rough. Not your usual buffet, it's Italian food. The staff serves you your choice of excellent food from behind a wall of glass away from kids and the green mustache brigade. Top notch dining and not too expensive. I highly recommend going more than once. And, for those of us who love the Pittsburgh Steelers, they are a Steeler Friendly environment and decorate their bar as such.
Preston's Another large seafood buffet place with a lot of good food and interesting decor. Located near the entrance of Bearfoot Landing.

Of course, I have to end my trip with a stop into the International House of Pancakes. Accept no substitutions.

Here's another tip about dining. This goes for wherever you decide to vacation along the coast. Usually, outside the restaurants you will see a little podium. These are those scammers who try to get you roped into seeing condos or time shares. Avoid them at all costs. Usually, a polite no will suffice, but sometimes they get persistent. The standard, "We're on our way home, right now." doesn't always work. Without resorting to violence as so many of us wish we could just pummel them into goo, there is one tried and true method to escaping their assault tactics. Find a buddy to run cover for you. By buddy, I mean a complete stranger that is leaving at the same time you are and by cover I mean put them between you and the podium so that they will get nabbed and you will be free to keep hurrying to your car. Don't look back and don't run. Just walk briskly to the car.

Now, if your tastes lie along the OBX and you aren't a seasoned island adventurer, here is my cautionary tale of how not to attack a trip to the Outer Banks. In 2002 my wife and I decided to take our usual trip to Myrtle Beach. This was the third year in a row and by Thursday we had felt a little burnt out from the beach. We wanted to be spontaneous and impulsive. We started looking into maybe stopping at the Outer Banks on the way home for a night. We were big lighthouse fans and I always wanted to see the one at Hatteras. We figured it was on the way home and couldn't be more than a couple of hours drive and we'd get a chance to check out the sights. We also didn't have any reservations for any lodging and figured we would wing it.

From the get go I knew this would be a bad idea. I don't mind being a little spontaneous with road trips, but the ones that involve staying somewhere overnight and are in other states than my own worry me if I don't have a plan. I didn't exactly have an available Internet connection in my hotel room so I couldn't research any of this. We did this like the pioneers did. Those pioneers being my parents who spent their honeymoon in Delaware during the pouring rain without any reservations and only a truck to stay in overnight. After all, who could have known that geography and driving distance have no real correlation. That old adage about the shortest distance between two points is a straight line only works if you don't have to cross water. You basically have two choices in getting to the Outer Banks by car. You either go in on the two main roads that lead into Kitty Hawk (158) and Whalebone (64) or you take a ferry. If you're coming from South Carolina, driving to either land routes is pretty much an all day trip, so ferry is the quickest trip. However, if you do not plan your trip, like we didn't, you may find yourself trying to drive from one ferry port to the other trying to make it. Unfortunately, you have to go West to go North which takes time. While Myrtle Beach doesn't look that far from Cedar Island, let me tell you, it is. It's about a five hour drive. Not to mention you tend to question your sense of direction and safety for that matter when you find yourself in front of a tank. Yes, I said tank. Apparently, you drive through parts of Camp Lejeune on your way and for a minute I thought we were trespassing into a blasting area.

After we finally reached the ferry, we realized that we had just missed it. The next one would be around for two hours. Now, it's around 4pm and we're starving. We filled up on vending machine food that expired sometime around the first George Bush's administration and had a revelation. Perhaps we should call and see about getting a room as we are definitely going to make it home tonight. I grabbed a phone book and began searching the yellow pages.

TIP #45: Do not expect to get a room on a Saturday night in August at a hotel in the Outer Banks.

I called four places, two of which were not answering probably because the phone book wasn't current. The others were completely booked up and I was beginning to lose hope. Finally, we got some luck on our side. A little place called the Castaways Inn in Avon said they had one room left. I should have suspected something was not right but I was just thankful that we found something. We booked the room and the ferry returned to shuttle us to Ocracoke Island. Two hours later we reached Ocracoke and wondered how to get to Hatteras Island. Apparently, there is only one road along Ocracoke, so it was pretty easy to figure out. What we didn't realize was that we had a very short amount of time to reach the other end of the island to catch the next and last ferry. Little thing about driving on Ocracoke Island at night. There is nothing outside of Ocracoke but a two lane blacktop in between rows of sand dunes. You couldn't see five feet off the edge of the road because of the height. I guess this is to keep it from washing out. Once we reached the other side of the island we were fortunate enough to catch the last ferry. It was dark and foggy and straight out of a bad swamp movie. The ferry moved along at a crawl among the eerie looking marshes. Reeds and grass slapped against the side of the small boat. It was like waiting to hit something in the dark for a half an hour.

TIP #56: Any place that tells you they have one room left is lying. Don't stay there.

Reaching our destination we now had some room to breathe. The first ferry took us from 6pm to 8pm and now we were going on 9pm and still hadn't made it to the hotel, but at least we didn't have to travel by ferry and at least we had a reservation. What we didn't have was a full stomach as those decade old funyins were beginning to disintegrate the inner wall of my stomach. In the middle of a flat piece of land devoid of any life stood The Castaways Inn. It was dark and looked like the bar from the move From Dusk to Dawn at this point a run in with vampires would not have been a surprise or that scary. We approached from the main road and passed a duck crossing sign. Previews of coming attractions. Considering the place was "full" there was ample parking and the place reminded me of what the Hotel California would have looked like if it had been vacant for a hundred years. It was a family run place and by the looks of the staff it was the family from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I wondered if Leather Face was going to get our bags for us. We inquired about food but at that moment the diner sign wen t dark so we kind of figured that was a no. Tall and wide concrete hallways lead us to our room. I was beginning to realize that they had a lot of vacancies and every person who called was told there was only one room left.

We entered our room and were just thankful to have a place to sleep for the night. Our relief turned to heart burn as we entered our room. Navy blue shag carpeting went from coral colored stucco wall to coral colored stucco wall. A little sink and faucet in one corner had nice marble looking counter tops flanked by cobwebs and dust. I didn't even try the water. I was afraid to. I fell back onto the bed in exhaustion and nearly ended up with a concussion as it was a step up from a wooden plank in softness. I highly recommend it for anyone who can't find a really firm mattress. While my wife, then girlfriend, checked the bedding for bugs, I did a little investigating. You know those little envelopes that the housekeeping staff leave for you if you should feel they deserve a tip? Well, they are a handy little indication of when the room was last cleaned. This one was done in May, of the previous year. Turning my attention to the balcony I could see that not only was there no light on it, there wasn't a view anyway so saving money on electricity was a good idea on their part. Of course, it made my wonder why being on a higher floor still constituted having a wooden 2x2 wedged into the sliding glass door track. I guess people forget their keys......a lot......to rooms other than their own.

The pangs of hunger were now in full force and we really needed to get some food. We hopped in the car and headed south again on really the only road there is in the area, route 12. We passed closed business after closed business. After 9pm, the island must shut down because nothing was open. Then, like the Parker family on Christmas after the Bumpuses' dog had eaten their turkey, we found that the only place open for business was a Chinese take out joint. Going with the safe bet we ordered chicken and noodles. We hurriedly rushed back to our palatial ocean side palace to dine on pure decadence. Like everything else in the OBX, it was pretty bad. I couldn't make out what the flavor was but, it certainly wasn't chicken. Afterwards we decided to maybe get a look at the ocean before bed. We had come this far, why not?

TIP #76: While a very large dead spider is nothing to fear. Not knowing what killed it and whether it's still around is.

The answer to that question lies in the title of this post. We had come down to the back entrance and walked directly into something that looked like it was out of Blade Runner or The Terminator. It was a dingy old breezeway with a cigarette machine and a snack vending machine. Off to the right was what looked to be a game room with a pool table. It looked like it hadn't been used in years. Inside the snack machine was void of food except for a pack of Toasted Cheese which had seen better days. The cigarette machine wasn't empty but it was odd. Considering this was 2002, the prices were less than today's standard of $4.15 a pack. However, I think $2.00 a pack is a little telling of the last time it was filled. Then we saw it. It was on top of the cigarette machine. I think it was a spider but I don't know. Frankly, I've never seen something that big up close. I assume it was dead as it was curled up on its back but I probably should have run. It looked like a dead face hugger from the Alien movies. The fact that it was dead wasn't so bothersome but wondering how it died sent my imagination into overdrive. We proceeded out the back of the hotel and headed for the shore. From the back entrance there was about 100 yards of grass and then huge dunes that rolled down into darkness. A wooden bridge connected the hotel to the water and went through a valley in the dunes. We took a few steps out onto the rickety bridge and then retreated. We could hear water but there was only darkness. The closer we got the more of an angle the bridge sloped to one side. We began to question whether this was a bridge or a pier. In fact, I would have rather walked that bridge in Temple of Doom, blindfolded, before walking any further on that death trap. Fearing we'd fall off into the water or that we would find the killer of the spider we decided to just go back to the room and put an end to this miserable trip.

Once back in the room, we tried to get sleep but found it hard on the mattresses. Eventually, I drifted off but was awoken by the sound of my wife asking a rhetorical question. "Are you kidding me?" She had gotten up to go the bathroom when she noticed a bug taking advantage of the owner free toothbrush on the vanity. "I want to go home, now." She cried. I wanted to oblige her but it was three in the morning and I was exhausted. I promised her that we'd leave as soon as we got some sleep.

TIP #90 When beauty is struck down in front of you. It's time to get the hell home.

The next morning we left without brushing our teeth. We made a quick stop at the three light houses in the area and snapped some pictures. A hellacious thunderstorm rolled through and I was about to step off the back porch of the Keeper's Quarters at the Bodie Island Lighthouse to get a great picture when there was a flash and crack of thunder. A bolt of lightning struck right behind the lighthouse and I slowly brought my left foot back onto the porch and turned around. We finally had enough and decided to just cut our losses and go home. We managed to get to a rest stop just south of the Virginia border and needed to stop for a bathroom break. We returned to the car to leave and stopped at the exit to watch a lone butterfly flutter across the road. Realizing that this was the most beautiful part of our hellish excursion, we wanted to enjoy this innocent creatures flight. Just then, an eighteen wheeler drove by causing the butterfly to be sucked into its trail and subsequent vehicles just hammered into it and fell to the side of the road, lifeless. That was it. We just sat there, stunned at this cruel reminder of how bad this little side really was. We left, vowing to never return to the Outer Banks again.

We stayed away for three years.until September 2005 when we decided to give it another try. We rented a house in Duck and spent most of our trip in the house due to the high surf from hurricane Ophelia which was bearing down on the Outer Banks. Why do we bother?

Actually, renting a house is not a bad idea. If you can gather enough trustworthy and tolerable friends, renting a beach house is a fun way to enjoy the Outer Banks. Remember the following when trying to set up a rental.

To make money, they need to rent out the house. That doesn't mean it has to be to you. Be willing to walk away and you may get some discounts.
You probably won't get them to drop the base rental fee without consulting with the owners. However, work them over on the fees and other charges. They can do those on their own.
Play good cop/bad cop. I'm always good cop and I tell the agency how much I like the place and then my wife becomes the bad guy and they want to help the poor husband out.
May and September are always better priced months but the weather isn't. Hurricanes are more likely in September. It's a trade off of money vs. safety.

Well, that's the long and long of it. Have fun out there and be careful. And remember, if you see a big dead thing, drive all night if you have to, but get the hell out of wherever you are. Its killer may be coming back.

Here is a picture of what a live version of the spider might have looked like. I found this in my yard last night. Notice the circumference of the red peanut butter jar lid and the size of the Chapstick as a point of perspective.