OMG! We love the OBX!

We briefly visited a small portion of the Outer Banks (OBX) of North Carolina several years ago when our friends, Craig and Alison, lived nearby.  Ever since then, we have wanted to come back and explore more of this beautiful area and thanks to a dirt-cheap flight sale to Norfolk, VA, on Southwest Airlines recently, we were able to do just that for a long weekend.  We rented a car and made the easy hour and a half trek south.


We stayed two nights in the lovely and quiet little town of Manteo on the sound-side
of the Outer Banks at The Outdoors Inn B&B.

Located in Nags Head and voted "the best seafood dive in North Carolina" by Coastal Living Magazine, we had a wonderful dinner here on Friday night, June 24,  at Tortugas' Lie.  Ashlee had a huge spicy shrimp skewer while I had the nightly special of peppered mahi.



Saturday, June 25, 2011.  Looking east from atop Cape Hatteras Lighthouse at the 6/10 of a mile path that the lighthouse travelled a few years back to save it from possible collapse due to beach erosion.  The 12-story, 268-step stair-climb to the top of this American classic was well worth the effort.



A view of our rental car as it takes a ride with us on the Ocracoke Island Ferry.  The free 45-minute boat ride from Hatteras was a lot of fun and afforded great views of the Pamlico Sound and the Atlantic Ocean beyond it.



The lovely Ashlee at the lovely Ocracoke Lighthouse.



A little muskrat love on Ocracoke Island.



The visitors center perched over the bright green, swampy water of
the Nature Conservancy's Nags Head Preserve.



A sound-side view from atop the Currituck Beach Light in Corolla.
 Only 214 steps needed to get to the top of the red-brick beauty.



Tooling down NC Hwy. 12.  Yep, the beach north of the town of Corolla is still considered part of the highway and it's the only way to reach a large number of rental and private beach houses located in this area.



A grazing "Banker Pony."  One of just over 100 pure-bred Spanish mustangs that roam wild and free on the dunes and beaches north of Corolla.  We were able to see several of these beauties thanks to a very cool two-hour, open-top Jeep tour that we had booked.

How much fun did we have in the Outer Banks?  Well, enough, to say "Heck, yeah!" to another trip out here in mid-August.  We got the same great flight deal into Norfolk and this time we are going to stay right on the beach.  We might even try our hand at some kite-boarding??