catlinyemaker

It was an easy drive from the Outer Banks to our new campsite north of Raleigh, NC. Which was good, because it was the first drive in over a month which was longer than 200 miles. Our lunch stop was a seafood packing plant with a little fried fish truck surrounded by picnic tables, just past the bridge on the mainland. We got fried oysters, which were delicious but tiny, and a bonus basket of scallops in apology for the itsy bitsy oysters.

( detours, driving, and a quiet week in the woods )

From Rodanthe we headed south for our second week on the OBX, driving 17 miles to Sands of Time campground in Avon, NC. Sands of Time is a Passport America (discount card) campground, which in their case means the campsite price is 50% of the regular rate, but you pay metered electric on top of that. In a hot weather stay during which the AC pretty much ran non-stop, we averaged 7 dollars per day for electricity. So our total daily rate was $29, which is exceptional for full hookup campsites on the Outer Banks. J’s work was dragging its feet on setting a due date, so we extended our reservation a couple of days. We really liked the campground, too; the water was good, there were plenty of small trees scattered throughout, and nice green grass and good-sized sites for a coastal campground. They had a little apartment complex of well-inhabited martin houses right in the center of the campground and visible from our rig, which seemed to help on the bug front and made the cats very happy indeed when we opened the blinds on the back window. The only downside is that it’s land-locked, so you have to drive to the beach access lots at the national seashore (two miles in either direction on the main road.)

( Less beach, museum that could be more.. )

I’d forgotten how much we like going to the beach.

As far back as I can remember, I’ve spent some time at the ocean almost every summer. One of my earliest memories is being at the beach with my parents, riding in the basket on the front of Dad’s bike and ‘helping’ mom make sandwiches for lunch. That might have been Ocean City or Myrtle Beach; I know it was in a big old beach house and I dimly remember being with another family. In grade school the beach was a weekend boat ride away on an island; in high school, my family went to Wildwood every year. In college, any nice summer day was an excuse tossing a beach bag in the car for the early morning drive to the Jersey shore and spending a day (or two) at the beach, coming home sandy and sunburnt and thoroughly satisfied with life. When J and I started dating we went to the beach often, and for several years after we were married we took a regular vacation week at Rehoboth Beach every summer with all the friends and family we could fit into the rental house.

Once we got the RV, we went everywhere but the shore! Making up for pent up demand, I think. The money we had been spending on a week at the shore went further at inland campgrounds, and we wanted to see new and different things. So it wasn’t until this year that we actually got to the beach in summer again. And even that was kind of a fluke, based on having to be near Raleigh at the end of July.

( on the Outer Banks and in Rodanthe )

Part 1

We had planned to go north for the summer, back to Maine and New Hampshire. Spend the summer months in the cooler states and stay out of the killer heat (not that it would have worked, this year, but that was the plan.) Last year J’s work diverted us to GA in July, and I wanted a more comfortable summer. But the same thing happened this year; he had to be in North Carolina at the end of July. There went our northern loop. J said as long as we had to be in the South in the heat, we could at least get some fun out of it, and he actually scheduled vacation time for the middle of the month.

( So the whole month, pretty much, was paybacks to me for having to give up my nice cool summer plans for a hot Southern summer. )

We’re on the Outer Banks for vacation, but the last few days the wind has been blowing so hard that going out to the beach is like stepping into a sand-blasting cabinet. Thank goodness this is the second week of vacation, and we got a lot of swimming time last week when the weather was perfect. It’s not a complete loss; we went sightseeing instead of beach-going and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, and we’ve been staying out of the heat in the RV so I have plenty of quilting time.

Sea and Shore (the obvious project for the situation) is almost ready to put together. Only five more blocks to finish, and then I can do the major layout thing. I was laying out blocks for assembly on the design bed (no room for a design wall) and had a lot of ‘help’. That’s Lilibelle in the photo above. She looks so innocent, doesn’t she?

I am thinking about quilting this with just a flannel backing as a summer spread, but I am a bit concerned about all those lumpy seams with no batting to pad them. J says it won’t be a problem, since we lie under quilts, not atop them. What do you think?

See what other folks have going on in the summer heat on Judy Laquidara’s Design Wall Monday.

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Entries tagged with north carolina

From the Coast to the Capital

Week two on the Outer Banks

OBX FTW

What I did on my Summer Vacation

What's on my Design W/a/l/l Bed

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