~Saturday~ Robert arrived precisely at 9:00, and we got on the road to Nags Head, taking 64E across the state. It was quite a pleasant ride, and we arrived in almost exactly three hours. Not bad at all.
We stopped at the Nags Head Inn to check in:
where we encountered Miss Puss, who stoically completed all of our paperwork, making it quite clear that we couldn’t check in until 4:00, in spite of the 3:00 check-in time advertised. I did get her to actually smile, though, when I asked her about food. She did ask for our cell number, and said she’d call as soon as the room was ready, though.
We rode the short distance, about seven miles, to Kitty Hawk, NC the home of, arguably, the first flight. We ran into Quentin Crisp doing his best Robert on the long walk up to the monument:
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Just kidding, here’s the real deal:
A little further along the path, we came across this sign explaining the flight experiments done by the Wright brothers, but as you can see the picture’s mostly about me:
And after the trek up the hill, here’s
And me aside it:
On our way back down to the auditorium where, on the hour, they did a little spiel about the history of the place, we passed two little buildings that were used by the Wright brothers, one was a hangar for their little planes and the other was their bunkhouse. There were adjectival phrases such as, “never married” and “they did everything together.” Things that make you go, “Hmmm.”
Inside the auditorium, they had this replica of the plane of the purported first flight:
Since that sewing machine was behind the cordoned off area, we decided to forgo repairing that little tear in my pants.
We walked around in the coolness for a little bit, looking at long line of portraits of people involved in the aviation industry over the years, including a couple of very outdoorsy-looking girls, and President George H. Bush. What I thought was the neatest was the inclusion of astronauts in the later years. The juxtaposition of those images struck me.
After that, we had lunch a place Miss Puss recommended, called Mulligan’s Raw Bar & Grille, where we both had the Fried Mahi Sandwich. I had fries as my side, and Robert had the slaw, which was the first slaw ever we’d both tasted that had tons of cilantro in it. It wasn’t bad, per se; it was just unexpected and we never really did get used to it.
We stopped at Logan’s Ice Cream Cottage for a quick cone, and where the—maybe 16-year-old—boy serving us rang up our order at the cash register with his Algebra II book beside it.
We checked in, and then enjoyed our ocean-facing balcony:
And Robert enjoying a soft drink:
and yours truly with an adult beverage:
We had a most delicious dinner at Awful Arthur’s, which my sister recommended after her recent trip out here with her husband.
The place was really hopping, and we chose to sit at the bar rather than wait an hour or so. The bartender was absolutely amazing. Not only was he serving drinks and dinner to everyone sitting at one half of the long bar, he was also fixing drinks for everyone seated at tables throughout the restaurant. And he was pleasant, to boot.
We had the most Awesome Crab Dip. No, really. That was the name of it on the menu: Awesome Crab Dip. And it was.
I had a combination dinner, choosing shrimp and scallops as my two items, with fries and slaw as my side, and it came with two hush puppies. Robert chose scallops and tuna as his two items, with red potatoes and slaw as his sides, and he got his own two hush puppies, but only ate one. It was the only thing left on any of the plates.
We split a nice-sized serving of crème brûlée for dessert. Awl in awl. Awful Arthur’s was awfully good.
Later in the room from our balcony, Robert noticed this view from our balcony of the moon reflecting on the ocean. Imagine it in person, more crisp, and most beautiful:
