In the morning, we walked the beach, cooked up some breakfast in a parking lot and checked out the last of the wild horses on Ocracoke. We then took a ferry to Cape Hatteras, which is a long skinny island. We spent most of the day at the Pea Island Refuge looking at birds and biking the service road. We went back to watch the sun set that evening.
We camped on this island for 2 nights, because it had a primo view and was in a pretty good location and wasn't as crazy populated with houses as the Nags Head area. That area was so populated that they didn't even have campgrounds! Just large homes you could rent for the week.
We checked out the Wright Brothers Memorial and saw where the first powered flight occurred. It was pretty amazing how thorough and scientific their approach was. And I was amazed that they created/made their own engine to power their plane as well as designed the actual aircraft frame.
We also walked through the Nags Head Woods Preserve, which was interesting because there were species of trees/plants that you wouldn't normally see living together. Mostly a combination of maritime forest and northern hardwood forest. All less than 1/2 a mile from the ocean. I found these ponds fascinating, because they looked so green and thick but it is duckweed growing on the surface.
This was my favorite lighthouse of the bunch, because sitting in the visitor center was a man who actually lived there as a child. His father was the last lightkeeper of the Bodie Island Lighthouse from 1919 to 1940. The volunteer lived there from 1919 to 1932 when he joined the Navy, because that was the only way he could get a ship in the depression. It was amazing to get to speak with someone who actually lived there 90 years ago!!!
It was a fun trip to the beach, even though we had to stay bundled up and didn't really spend any time laying out.
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