Goodbye, OBX

I didn't get a ton of sleep going into the last day of the trip (which seems to be the norm now when I have to fly somewhere), and I woke up nice and early at 5 something to the sound of rain and thunder. The radar showed that the storms would blow through after a little while, so I hung out in bed and listened to the rain move through until Mark eventually woke up. We packed up our backpacks and biked to the airport to start loading up the plane.

The airport comments online mentioned that the runway occasionally floods after heavy rain, but aside from a few puddles on the ramp, everything looked fine. We put most of our things in the plane, then biked back into town for some breakfast.

We eventually made our way back to the hotel to return the bikes and check out (and take one last look at the harbor). The weather looked good enough for the flight home, so we grabbed the rest of our stuff and slowly scootered back over to the airport.

It didn't take too long to load the rest of our things and get going. (Good thing, since the greenheads at the airport were vicious!)

Mark got this when I was only a few hundred feet off the ground. There aren't many airports this close to the beach!

I circled around and flew past the harbor on the way out. Goodbye, Ocracoke...we'll definitely be back again someday.

We retraced our steps on the way back up the coast, and flew just offshore to enjoy the view.

Hatteras Inlet again. I really like these inlet pictures!

Mark was especially impressed with how close these houses were to the water. It looked like one good storm would sweep them all away.

We flew past the Bodie Island Lighthouse...

...and First Flight on our way north.

We eventually made it past all the water. It was kind of weird to be flying over land again!

For a brief moment on the way up, I considered giving MQI a second chance. As soon as I started thinking that, their pattern filled up again, so we continued on to my original planned stop: Currituck County (ONX).

This was a much easier fuel stop! There was only one other plane in the pattern, there was only one runway, and they had self-serve fuel. We made a quick stop in the FBO building (which was empty, but very nice), then headed back out to the ramp to top off the plane. One of the guys who had been mowing the grass came over to chat for a minute and see if we needed help, and within half an hour or so we were back in the air and on our way home. It was a really nice quick stop, and even better, it was the cheapest gas of the trip! I'll definitely use this airport again for Outer Banks trips.

You can just see Lake Drummond out in the distance through the haze. The rest of the flight home was uneventful, and we made it back to HWY about an hour before the storms started popping up. Overall, it was a really good trip! I understand now why everyone likes the Outer Banks so much, and we'll definitely be heading back to Ocracoke again someday.   :)