The Blanch Herd: OBX Blanchard Reunion {Day 4: Kitty Hawk}

Day 4 (Wednesday, July 24th) was Pioneer Day back home, and we celebrated a different type of pioneers by visiting Kitty Hawk to see the birthplace of flight. Most of us have read The Wright Brothers by David McCullogh in the past few years (or picture books about them for the younger set in our house) and this was high up on the list of things to do and see while we were on the Outer Banks.

Before we left for Kitty Hawk (about a 45 minute drive down the island from Corolla, though it took us closer to an hour to get there with traffic), some of the kids wanted to go crabbing as one of the resort's daily activities. We opted to play at the playground in the Oceanfront complex while Gregg played basketball with Dray and Kage. I got to walk on the beach a couple different times with Cal and Sam individually, and we had fun spying ghost crabs zipping in and out of their holes on the beach while we picked up shells.

Soon it was time to head to the Wright Brothers Memorial. We made a pit stop on the way for the famous Duck Donuts (though we stopped at the one in Corolla, not Duck). We spent a couple hours exploring the memorial area - the visitor's center was great and had a replica of the the Wright Flyer, the sheds have been rebuilt outside where they lived and built and repaired their planes were open for us to look around inside, the monuments marking the distances of the first four flights on December 17, 1903 were cool to walk by, and the large monument up on the top of Kill Devil Hills gave a great view of the whole area.

We headed back home for an early dinner of fajitas (our turn to cook!) and then another visit to the beach. We finished off the evening (before Sam melted down and had to be carried home to bed) at the little ice cream shop in the village across the street from our house. It was a fun and full day, but we were all definitely feeling the effects of vacation by this point. Good thing a good night's sleep is all it took to start fresh the next day.

Good morning snuggles with Grandma.

Basketball by the beach. (Behind those flags is the pool
area, and beyond that is the beach.)

Ghost crab sighting. Can you see it?

I spy a jelly!

These were the friendly jellies we liked to
pick up and play with - the tentacles are on the
inside so there's no danger of getting stung
from these ones. (Dray was not so fortunate
on another day in the ocean when he got
a mean one stuck in his shorts and got
stung! Poor guy!)

A lovely morning at the beach!

Meanwhile, on the sound side - the other half of the cousins
were catching crabs. They learned well and taught us the tricks
so we got to try it out on Saturday (stay tuned for those pics).

It was fun to watch the donuts being cooked
right before our eyes.

It was an automated machine that squeezed out batter into the
hot oil, then the donuts floated along down the chute before being
flipped by a little lever/arm thing and then finally being plopped
into a cooling tray.

Then a worker boxes them and takes them down to the decorating
station.

You can choose a glaze flavor, a topping and a drizzle if you want.
Callie chose strawberry glaze with sprinkles, I got maple glaze
with bacon, Gregg got blueberry glaze with oreo crumbs and Sam
wanted caramel (which they only had in drizzle).

Callie and Liz checking out the
Wright Flyer model.

Callie had to show off her national park stamps
to Uncle Ryan.

Kill Devil Hill with the monument is in the distance.
The sheds where they lived and repaired gliders are next to
Gregg's shoulders.

Yonder is the walk past the first four flights' monuments.

These are the original tracks the Wrights laid for the plane
to glide on before take off. So cool!

Snack time before heading back to the house.

Group shot!

It's hard to see in this photo, but there were people flying
kites out on that field with the same wind the Wright Brothers
used to fly their "kites". That was pretty amazing to feel,
I must say!