Outer Banks

Amy and I and the kids spent the last week in July in North Carolina; we drove down to the Outer Banks to stay in a beach house with a collection of grad school friends (21 in all, counting kids and adults). Very enjoyable holiday; it was great to catch up with everyone.

We decided that we would do the traveling by car this time, which was something of a mixed bag. The drive down took two (very) long days; it definitely tested the patience of everyone in the car, drivers and passengers. We picked the kids up from camp around 1pm and headed directly for the highway, driving Amy's car (older but slightly more comfy for the long distance drives). Lots of people on the road; we managed to get caught in very thick traffic near Manhattan, and then when we were not paying especially close attention, our GPS took us on a route that put us into a huge pileup near the George Washington bridge. Once we extracted ourselves from that mess, we hit lots more traffic on the New Jersey turnpike, so it wasn't until 10:30 or so that we managed to make it to Pete and Rosana's house in Maryland (outside D.C.). Everyone was exhausted.

Alas, the next day turned out to be even more stressful. We left around 9:30 or so, taking 95 south down to N.C. Lots of stop and go traffic getting out of D.C., but then the really nasty stuff started once we got onto the smaller highways south of Norfolk, trying to get down to the bridge that would take us onto the outer banks. There is such a "choke point" at the bridge (and there were so many cars trying to get in) that the traffic was literally creeping the entire way-- a stretch of highway that should have taken about 90 minutes took us a good four (five?) hours. None of the ordinary adjectives used to describe bad traffic ("horrendous", "appalling", "total gridlock", etc) were strong enough-- I think we needed new words this time. Anyhow, we finally rolled into the driveway of our rental house around 7 or so, all of use exhausted. Luckily Pete and Rosana had made spaghetti sauce for our first meal, so they were able to get everyone fed without too much hassle.

On the positive side, the car gave us no trouble, and we did manage to keep ourselves mostly entertained. We listened to a lot of music (including the dreaded Lady Gaga) and Amy hit a home run with her selection of "To Kill a Mockingbird" as a book to listen to on tape (superb recording by Sissy Spacek).

Corolla (the town in which we were staying) is on a section of the Outer Banks  that is very thin, around 1-2 km in most spots. The ocean-facing edge is very straight and uniform, whereas the other side (facing the Currituck Sound) has numerous little bumps, inlets, coves, and other features. The Sound itself is nearly fresh water, with just a little salt, and is very shallow (2-5 feet) in most places. There is a single main road that runs up and down the banks (just two lanes). Between the road and the ocean shore are endless ranks/rows of beach houses, most of them quite large (they seem to go on for miles and miles), so it's a fairly heavily developed area. The beach, however, is really wonderful, and even with all those hordes of people, it doesn't feel as though it is crowded at all.

The ocean water seemed to vary wildly depending on sun, wind, etc. The first couple of day we had very cold water, then once the wind changed directions so that it was blowing towards the shore, the water temps shot up a good 10-15 degrees, making it a good deal more comfortable (apparently when the wind is blowing this way, it tends to "trap" the warm water against the shore). Decent surf, but nothing too big or too scary (I'm just as glad).

The Rice C.S. gang all seems to be doing well, and it was fun to meet all the various kids, some of whom I haven't seen for ages. Several of them that I remember as tiny babies and small kids are now middle-schoolers and teenagers. There were four boys, with Ethan the oldest, and five girls, with Lydia the youngest. The kids spent most their time in the pool and playing various games upstairs in the living room, when they weren't being dragged around to other various activities by their parents. Everyone seemed to get along very well.

Excursions and side trips: we visited the Corolla lighthouse, an elderly brick affair that featured a rather hot and sweaty climb followed by delicious cool breezes at the top, along with excellent views of the area.

Here is a shot of an osprey that I took (almost by accident) up on the top. Striking birds; very beautiful:

We spent  morning kayaking on the sound, which was also fun. Some photos:

The water in the sound is very shallow; at one point the guides let us hop out and squish our toes in the mud, which was fun. The mud itself had an incredibly soft and "creamy" feel to it (although it was a little on the stinky side).

It was a pretty big house, so we managed to cram everyone in without too much discomfort. Bedrooms on all three floors, with the kitchen and living room on the top floor; plenty of room for lolling around before, during, and after mealtimes. Pool table on the bottom floor (we had many different "interpretations" of billiards).

The conventional wisdom is that girls are prim & proper, neat & tidy and care about keeping up appearances, whereas boys are basically neanderthals / slobs, and will do anything to avoid cleaning up after themselves. The photographic evidence seems to indicate otherwise, however, since here is the boys room (nice and tidy):

and here is the girls room (rather on the messy side):

Just goes to show you that the old stereotypes don't always apply. The sleeping arrangements proved mostly successful, although the younger girls (Lydia and Nora) wound up moving out of the shared girls room to sleep in their parents room, since the older girls stayed up very late talking and watching the tube.

Not surprisingly, the Outer Banks are an amazingly good place for kite flying. We flew just about everything from the high-tech, gadgety dual-line kits to box kites to simply fabric "scoop" kites-- they all worked well.

Here is a shot (taken by Chau-Wen) of Reinhard surfing with a small kayak-- I tried it a couple of times too, and it was actually rather fun. I briefly considered renting a real surfboard, but eventually decided that I'd rather spend the time body-surfing and doing other non-ocean things.

Lots of good sand castle activity. We had pyramids, a "pit of death" (constructed by Ben and Ethan) and a number of others.

 
We had exactly one game of charades-- took some pestering to get it organized and under way, but it was fun while it lasted.

Here is a shot of me trying to act out "Arnold Schwarzenegger" (more difficult than you might think).

We cooked all of our dinners at home, which I actually enjoyed-- although it's a hassle to cook, it is definitely a more social way to spend the meal.  Here is a picture by Chau-Wen of a fish dish that Kathy and gang made (I think this is tile fish on a bed of leeks and tomatoes, yum).

About midway through the week we had the inspired idea of asking the kids to do all the cleanup after dinner, which amazingly they did without any grumbling or broken dishes. Huzzah.

Here are Lydia and Nora showing off the rather tacky souvenir sunglasses that they managed to convince their parents to buy. The two of them seemed to get on just fine in spite of the language barrier:

We asked our kids afterward what the high point of the week was, and the pool made the top three for both of them. The kids spend loads of time splashing around with each other. It's nice now that they are good swimmers and we don't have watch them like hawks all the time.

Also: volleyball! Rosana was the chief volleyball game instigator; we had several very competitive 4-4, 3-3, and 5-5 matches. The court itself was a little overgrown (I think it was trying hard to turn itself into a lawn), but it was still a lot of fun.  I was impressed by how enthusiastic the younger generation was, particularly Blue and Ethan. Not very many pictures of volleybally (the chief picture-takers were busy playing):

Ethan and the older girls were playing a game at one point that looked cool. First person takes a piece of paper and writes a phrase on it, then second person has to draw a picture that captures the phrase. The paper gets folded over (so that the third person sees only the picture), and then the next person has write a phrase to match the picture. You keep folding as you go until you run out of players. Here is one of the more interesting ones that they did (I scanned it in):

Card games: most of the interesting action took place late at night, when we had finally managed to get all of the kids to finally go to sleep (prediction: next reunion it will be the kids staying up to play cards, while the adults go to bed early :-). I was introduced to Tahimi, a card game that's apparently been played regularly at the other reunions that I haven't made it to. Very entertaining, especially with a big gang (and we certainly had that). Rules are roughly similar to "http://tahimi.com/rules", with minor variations and terminology differences. The first night I did fairly well, but the second I finished dead last (due of course to the horrendous hands I was dealt, of course :-). The game features a self-reinforcing "feudal" social hierarchy / pecking order, where those who do well are (the "elites") are rewarded at the expense of those who do not (the "serfs" or "peasants"). Eerie similarities to real life.

Here is the collected gang (photo by Chau-Wen):

On the way home we stopped off in Philadelphia and gave the kids a chance to see Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell (a good attraction to visit if you like seeing thing that take less than 10 minutes total). The tour at Independence Hall was excellent; I'm glad that Amy signed us up. The various attractions there in Philadelphia seemed to be oddly deserted, considering the fact that it was a nice weekend in late July.

All in all, a nice vacation.  This will probably be my last time off for a while, since I haven't had a chance to accumulate any vacation time at my new job (had to borrow a few days just to make it to NC).