September 24th: Goodbye Frisco, Hello Kill Devil Hills

I won't lie...I definitely miss this view! It would have been nice to stay in Frisco longer, but the rental house was booked up and it was time to head north. I drank my coffee out on the deck one last time...

...then stopped to watch the butterflies for a few minutes on the way to the beach.

We took the doggies for one last walk on the beach before we packed up the house.

 The waves were huuuuuuge. There was a dramatic difference in the waves compared to the day before; these looked angry.

Wembles looked so serious. We walked for a little bit, then headed back to the house to pack up.

The rental house, as seen from the beach path. It's the one in the middle with the deck on top; under the top deck was a porch that connected to the master bedroom. Mark and I packed up most of the house, then he drove me over to the airport so I could pick up my plane.

The hurricane was still several states away, but the winds were already up around 20kts with some pretty healthy gusts. I left the plane tied down until right before I started up because it was blowing so hard. The wind was roughly down the runway, though, so it was an easy (and short!) takeoff. Most of the other planes had already left ahead of the storm; after I took off, there were only 3 planes left on the field.

Since I had a bit of a head start over Mark and Zach, I figured I might as well take my time and do a little sightseeing on the trip north. I followed the coast down around Cape Point. (This is looking north, up the Outer Banks.)

There were a bunch of cars out on the beach; some of them were getting hit by some of the higher waves.

You could already see how much higher the water was ahead of the hurricane; some of the houses were already at the edge of the waves, too.

I followed the coast north, paralleling NC 12 as I went. I'm not sure if the water on the road was from the first hurricane or the one that was approaching, but either way, there were some pretty soggy sections of road.

I kept flying north, eventually passing Oregon Inlet...

...as well as First Flight (FFA). I had been listening to the CTAF frequency for Manteo (MQI) the entire way up, and shortly after I circled around FFA there was a nice gap in the traffic. I zipped over to the field, made it into the pattern with no problems, and did an awesome short landing (seriously, down and stopped in less than 1000') thanks to a huge headwind.

Ta da! Hello, Manteo!

One of my flying buddies from back home, Eric, happened to be on vacation nearby, too, so he came to hang out with me for a bit while I waited for Zach to come pick me up. Eric and I checked out Manteo's small museum in the FBO, then spent a while catching up on things. We used to teach for the same flight school but he flies for United now, so it's always nice to catch up with him when I can!

After a little while, Zach made it to the airport, so I said goodbye to Eric and unloaded the plane. We still had a little time to kill before we could get into our next rental house, so Zach and I drove over and met Mark and the doggies at...

...Jockey's Ridge State Park. I've flown over this area of giant sand dunes before, so it was really cool to see them up close!

Zach went out to run some errands nearby, so Mark and I decided to take the dogs for a short walk. It was a little toasty, but we walked for a little while with the doggies (and stuck mostly to the cooler damp parts of the sand).

Mark made sure that they stayed well hydrated.   :)

We didn't stay out there very long, though. Mark gave both of the wiener dogs a ride back to the car.

I saw this cool bird from the path leading back to the parking lot.

We still had a little while left before we could get into the house, so we drove around a bit and found the beach near the house. It would have been nice to hang out there, but dogs aren't allowed on the beach during the day, so we had to can that idea. The owner of the rental house eventually texted us to say that the house was ready, so we drove over, checked in, and unpacked.

There was a small deck on top of the roof, so we climbed up to check out the view. You can just make out the ocean way in the distance; the beach was about a five minute drive away.

After settling in and having some snacks, Mark and I took the dogs for a walk around the neighborhood. We were a few blocks away from the sound, but it didn't seem like there was a way to walk down there from where we were, so we admired it from the road before turning around and walking back to the house.

I had been watching the weather all day, and given the hurricane moving up the coast, it looked like I would have to head out the next day. I wanted to make the most of my last night there, so Mark and I went out to dinner.

We wound up at the Black Pelican, which actually used to be the Western Union office where the Wright Brothers sent their telegram that they had flown. The drinks were tasty, the seafood risotto was delicious, and it was right on the beach, which was neat. (And even better, I wound up with leftovers that I flew back to VA with the next day and had for lunch haha.)

We spent the rest of the night hanging out at the house. I sat on the couch with the wiener dogs (and obsessively checked every weather forecast I could get my hands on)...

...while Zach and Mark played a few rounds of video games. We later moved on to Yahtzee, then eventually went to bed.