The Ride Continues Sept 13 – 18, 2021

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We left the North Carolina Outer Banks via ferries and camped Saturday night at the Cedar Campground in Sea Level, NC. We are now over 1,350 miles into our trek to Key West . . . just south of Morehead City, NC. When we last wrote we had just crossed from New Jersey into Delaware via the Cape May Ferry where we stayed at the Big Oaks campsite in Rehoboth Beach, DE.

Jay finally had some favorable wind days, and rode some long rides through Delaware and Maryland to Kiptoeke, VA where we put the bike on the car and traveled through the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel.  Our stopping point was the Travelodge Inn in Ocean City, VA. Quite an experience at this hotel under new management. All but three rooms had been fully renovated . . . and we had one of the unrenovated rooms. We survived.

We took a day off to visit the Chrysler Museum in nearby Norfolk, one of the many suggestions we had from our friend Kristina Banks, who grew up in Norfolk. We were delighted by a docent who is an art teacher at the local college. There were three

Depiction of T. Roosevelt's Door

of us in the group, so it was quite personalized. Our favorite piece that was pointed out to us was a life-size painting of a door hung with a variety of objects, including a dead turkey, an 1822 almanac, a hat, pouch and a gun leaning on it. The artist was depicting a scene in Theodore Roosevelt’s hunting lodge.

After our day off, Jay got an early start to Currituck, NC to avoid potential rains and winds that were predicted to shift into a very unfavorable direction. The day started great with a ride along a bike path with the ocean nearby. As with all great plans, something happened. About 20 miles into the ride Jay got a flat. He inserted a new inner tube only to discover that his bike pump was not working. A call to Helen resulted in a trip to a bike shop, a pump repair and a resumed journey. However, the dreaded winds were now blowing against him and light rain fell from time to time. Jay did catch the last ferry from Knots Island to Currituck. On the ferry Jay met Charles, another east coast cyclist.  Charles is doing his ride self-contained (carries all his gear with him) without any support.

Fortunately, the winds shifted just as Jay was making his way to the Outer Banks. These strong tailwinds allowed him to ride the 100 miles on the Outer Banks (OBX) over two days with a smile on his face. There were smooth roads, little traffic, a great tail wind; his average speed was 19 mph. It was one of the best rides of his life!

Wright Brothers

Of course you can’t go to Kitty Hawk without visiting the Wright Brothers Memorial. We spent several hours touring the Visitor’s Center, reading the info, looking at old photographs and admiring a full scale model of the first airplane that flew in Dec. 1903. We climbed up the original sand dune (now covered with vegetation to preserve it) to admire the huge monument built to honor and preserve the memory of Wilber and Orville Wright. And to think . . . just last month untrained civilians flew almost 400 miles above the earth and orbited it for several days!

Jay kept pedaling and Helen took a side trip to visit the Lighthouse at Cape Hatteras. The inside is currently closed to visitors due to the first full renovation since its completion in 1870. However, visitors were invited to tour the grounds, which includes the Visitors Center and museum, and take as many photos as they wished. A number of young park rangers were on hand to provide info and recount stories of the fabled monument.

Saturday was a day of ferry rides; the first one from Hatteras to Ocracoke, then a second from Ocracoke to Cedar Island. While we waiting for the 1:00 pm ferry to Cedar Island, we had lunch SmacNally’s.  Since it was Sunday, we ordered a pitcher of mimosas to celebrate the beautiful day. Only after checking our ferry tickets did we realized it was Saturday. Oops! Hard to keep track of the days.

The video below has images from our blog over the past two weeks.