The Snow Miser Strikes

A little bit, anyway.

Evidently, Snow Miser has something on Heat Miser on account of Heat Miser allowed some real winter on the Outer Banks over the last few weeks. It's not often that we see the Currituck Sound iced over, but iced over it was, all along the edges. That, coupled with some stiff winds, made for some beautiful ice formations where there normally ain't none.

After our foray onto the sub-freezing beach in the fierce winds and blowing sand, Rosie & I went in search of pretty, sparkly ice. We didn't have to look far, especially after my friend Russ posted some very nice icy pictures taken from the causeway on his blog. So the causeway was our goal. This is the road leading from the Outer Banks to Roanoke Island, home of The Lost Colony and the town of Manteo, the county seat of Dare County. There is a thin strip of land running west before you hit the bridge, and it was on this strip of land, at the water's edge, that we decided to stop.

I think Rosie's pictures of the event are better than mine. I was so cold by then, I just wanted to soak in the efficient heater in my trusty Subaru. Although, I kind of like the last one below.

On the way back to the house, I wanted to stop at Jockey's Ridge to find the castle. The dunes ate a mini-golf course many years ago. I posted about this before, so you can refresh your memory here.

The castle was there in the evening sun, in all its gobbled up glory.

But it seems SOMEONE didn't want to get out of the warm car and trudge up the dunes with me. Wuss.

When I left Rosie's, it was dark. My mother called as I was pulling out of Rosie's neighborhood. When she heard I had only started for home, she no doubt wrung her hands with worry until I called to tell her I was home . . . in the house . . . with the door locked.

But, on the drive back, I found the haunted house. I love to look at in the daytime . . .

. . .but, at night, it is positively eerie.

Oh, one more thing. Rosie spied something that I had to turn around for. One last picture. Through the window of the warm car.

Morning woodies. Yeah, I like those.

Bucket List - Kinda

Traveling to new and exotic places is on the list,
but a trip to the Outer Banks isn't really new since I've been coming here for over 30 years.
Also, exotic isn't a word I would use to describe this area.
Of course, if I had never been here before, it would be exotic, fer sure.

I came down here to deliver some Christmas gifts to friends and family.

First stop was my father in Kitty Hawk.
I know I have posted pictures of the view out his back door before,
but one can never have too much pretty scenery.




These next 2 pictures are of the pond across the street from his house.
Ooh, pretty.
The water was glassy smooth, and it made the water look so mirrored,
I couldn't resist the Kodak momemt.
I like things that look shiny.



After breakfast, we took a little road trip up the beach to Corolla.

First stop, the Outer Banks Center for Wildlife Education.



This is a new museum, relatively small, but very interesting... and FREE!
And they show a movie. Any museum that shows a movie is OK in my book.
Also, the ladies' room was very nice - clean and spacious.
Simple minds are pleased by simple things.

A couple of interesting tidbits from the museum about the Currituck Sound...



If you click on the picture, it will make it bigger & you can read the lesson.

Next, we walked over the (almost) 100 year-old footbridge....

....to the Whalehead Club, formerly the Corolla Island Hunt Club,
that has been fully restored to it's former glory.
It was vacant for many years and had deteriorated badly.

Pop told me that about 30 years ago, when it was still abandoned and ramshackle,
he snuck in there and played the Steinway piano that was custom made for the original owners.
It was understandably sorely in need of tuning (duh!), but he got a rush out of it.
The curator told us that when they went to move it for restoration, the legs fell off.
I'm sure that was from Pop playing it. Yeah, that's it.

I remember it from then.
We first started coming to the Outer Banks about 35 years ago,
and the first time we drove up the sand track to Corolla,
we saw it back there in the marsh, crumbling.
I'm so glad it has been restored.
I hate to see history erode away
(or knocked down so we have the pleasure(?) of a new strip mall).




Aside - click on the picture to make it larger and look at the emblem on the back of Pop's jacket.
It's not there just for show. It's also got his name embroidered on the front.
It's his. He earned it.
Now you see why I sheepishly admit that he can still run circles around me.
Although, he did disclose that the arthritis in his hip is becoming a problem.

It is amazing that, back in 1925, when the club was built
(out in the middle of bumblefuck nowhere),
they installed unheard of luxuries like an elevator,
numerous bathrooms with hot & cold running water and flush toilets and tubs and sinks,
and a full basement (in an area where the water table is 5 feet down).

Most of the house - half of the 1st & 2nd floors, the entire 3rd floor,
the entire basement, and the attic - were devoted to servants quarters & activities.
And the thing I liked the best were all the closets, some big & some small,
that were tucked in everywhere you turned.
I llllove closets. Probably because I have so few of them in my house.

The grounds were full of a common sight on the OBX, live oak trees.


Anyway, we wanted, or I should say I wanted, to climb the lighthouse.
Pop with the arthritis and just the teeniest bit of fear of heights.
The views from the top are spectacular,
but the Currituck Beach Lighthouse was closed for the winter.

Bummer. It was a perfect day for looking - crystal blue cloudless skies.
Trust me, I've been up there. Words can't describe.
But I will go back on a sunny spring day and take some pictures.
All the pictures I took up there before were on a regular camera,
and it is too much for my feeble brain to try to transfer the negatives to digital
(or whatever the hell you do with them).

That evening, I meandered my way to my friend Rosie's house (on Colington Island)
to spend the next day with her and her dear husband Mr. Hawthorne.
We met on the internet, since we are apparently both stalkers,
but that is another story for another day.
If you really want to know, Rosie is telling the story on her blog even as I type this.

Here she is hiding behind her new friend Bjorn at the store.


I believe I have mentioned that Rosie is an outstanding cook,
and she presented me with about a a jillion of her Christmas cookies...


She also made homemade croissants for our breakfast the next morning.
Unfortunately, the place she had them rising was a little too warm,
and a lot of the butter oozed out of their doughy coils.
She blasphemed them, but I thought they were delicious -
buttery, flaky, buttery, yeasty, buttery, and they left a buttery sheen on my fingers.
I didn't care that they were flat as a pancake.

Split in half and filled with bacon & scrambled eggs, they were delicious.
Everything Rosie makes is faaaaaabulous.
And she put 2 of them in my cookie box. Yay!
1 for me and 1 for BS.... or.... maybe.... 2 for me!

Then Rosie bitched at me for leaving buttery fingerprints on her computer keyboard.
Tough. Butter is one of the foods of the gods.

Oh yeah, there were also warm sticky buns.


I sure like going to visit them. Duh!

That night, as we were channel surfing, we came across these listings:


There they were, 24 hours a day (according to the channel guide)

We spent all evening thinking up adjectives and alliterations for what we saw on the guide.
Here's what we came up with, shamelessly stolen from her blog:

"Apparently, there is a cocky cornucopia of carnality -
nay - a virtual plethora of porn -
a fertile, fetid field of fecundity,
a slippery smorgasbord of smut -
a library of libidinous lasciviousness -
a buffet of boisterous beastiality -
an eyeful of erogenous erotica -

on the upper channels."

She was so thankful that I taught her how to find the porn on her TV.

And finally, here is Rosie's dog, Dixie, in a typical pose for her. Heh.

mmm

Happy Birthday to Me!

It's only once a year, so for that one day, everyone deserves to have it be all about them, and Friday was mine. I had a nice cake and balloons at work, along with a very nice gift, then I left a little early to go to a movie with my mother. We saw Nights in Rodanthe, which was very good except for..... no no, not telling. It is fun to see a movie set in familiar places, as the Outer Banks are right next door to Virginia Beach.

After the movie, we met my brother & BS at a Virginia Beach landmark for dinner:

Steinhilber's has been there since 1939, and is still owned and operated by the same family. We like to give our pennies to locally owned businesses, and this one has excellent food.

My fried shrimp were enormous and served with a lovely remoulade sauce, and my brother said the prime rib is the best he has ever had. The transfer of tasty beef from the plate to his stomach via his taste buds is one of his favorite things, so I trust his opinion of anything culinarily related to the cow. Anyway, the restaurant is on the river, so the view out the back is lovely, even if it was getting dark. But dusk on a clear breezy evening is my favorite time of all. And on our way out, Mom gave me a WHOLE PAN OF BROWNIES to take home!!!!! Hot dog!

Then Saturday morning, I got up and drove down to the Outer Banks for a visit with my dad for more birthday fun. It is 72 miles from my front door to his. Not bad, and it is a very pretty and peaceful drive.

This is my very favorite scene on the way there. I keep wondering - is that what killed these people? Dirty Dick's is a local seafood company, and they just loooove their slogan. And their other one - 'if you haven't been there, you obviously don't know Dick'. Heh.

When I arrived, we walked across the street for the Kitty Hawk Heritage Day festivities.

This little clown did NOT look happy to be wearing her costume & face paint on a warm afternoon. Could not get the child to crack a single smile.

First thing we did was make a beeline for the food, and we found a vendor selling big ol' BBQ turkey legs. I don't want to think about the fat & calories in this thing. It was just too stinkin' good, as you can see because all that was left were the bare bones....

They had a really cool old old old fire engine...

Some dead animal carcasses (can't figure out why they were there. You couldn't buy them or anything).

Local school kiddies playing music....

These high schoolers formed a jazz band, and they were very good....

Grown men in funny looking clothes. No, really, they were from Fort Raleigh, the site of the Lost Colony....

And lots of green pond scum. You can see it around the fountain, but when not disturbed by moving water, it made for a solid green mat of algae over every damp surface....

When we had about as much fun as we could stand, we went back home to digest before dinner. My dad lives on the Currituck Sound, and he gets the most beautiful sunsets. On some days, anyway. Saturday wasn't one of them, but the views are still wonderful....

He says that when they moved into the house 20 years ago, the level of the sound was not that high, certainly not up the stairs. It has risen about a foot since he has lived there. OMG! It's GLOBAL WARMING and RISING SEA LEVELS, right there in his back yard!!! (If you look closely in that first link, there is a little story that says crop yields will increase with warming. Yay! Increased crop yields. The only bright spot amid all the doom and gloom. They even go so far as to say that there would be no more Mardi Gras in New Orleans. "Oh my gawd, it's a fuckin' nightmeah!" (5 points to whoever gets that obscure movie reference. I know Toughie & BS will get it) But I digress...

Anyway, Pop & I headed out for a very enjoyable evening. It started with dinner at the Flying Fish Cafe in Kill Devil Hills. The food was spectacularly good. Then to First Flight High School for an installment of the Outer Banks Forum, bring the performing arts to the isolated & unwashed masses of the barrier islands. This one featured the 1929 silent film version of Phantom of the Opera with Dorothy Papadakos at the organ. Sooooo cool - she basically improvised an entire soundtrack right there while watching the movie with all of us. The forum has done a fantastic job, and I wish them much success. Darn, I had a picture of her playing with her organ (snerk), but I can't find it.

Then we came home and watched football. It was close, but Virginia Tech beat Nebraska's big fat butts.
Go Hokies!

The next morning, we headed out for breakfast at probably my favorite restaurant on the Outer Banks - the Jolly Roger.

I think the reason it's my favorite is because we have been going there since we first started visiting the Outer Banks - about 30 years, so there are a lot of memories attached there.

After a little nap after breakfast, I had to go, since I had another stop to make before I went home. My internet friend Rosie Hawthorne (not her real name. I am Ticky, but that's another story) lives only about 10 miles from Dad, and I have visited her several times before. There is always a fun time to be had there. She is a fa-a-a-a-abulous cook (as is Mr Hawthorne), and she posted all about my visit and her preparations. They are truly beloved friends, and to think, we met online at this site, since we both love to watch the Food Network. Not everyone you meet online is a stalker, you know. Her posts about my visit have much better pictures, so I will encourage you to look at hers, however, I shall include a few....

She asked me ahead of time if I liked shrimp, and my response was "Shrimp are the food of the gods. So is Velveeta." We have an ongoing joke about Velveeta. So she made me some delicious Veleeta dip....

Next were homemade spring rolls. They look like big floppy phallus symbols. Probably why she made them for me, she knows how much I like my phallus symbols....

Hawthorne Doggie Dixie was very anxious for some tasty scraps....



I hope I see you again soon Hawthornes!! And I'll bring BS next time.

Some random scenes of NC before I go:

A box turtle we rescued from the road and placed ever-so-gently in the safe bushes.



These trees were still b-r-a-c-i-n-g for the storm. I don't think anyone told them the storm was over...








"And come again real soon!" New Yorkers got nuthin' on us.

And finally, the stained glass windows I made for Dad's house, many years ago....





Now I think I need a brownie for breakfast. See ya!