Cliff and Jennifer had a real nice wedding in their yard. Both the ceremony and the reception were outside. Those of us who were NC bound had to book out of there early - just as the thunder clouds were about to strike.
Driving out of Northeast Ohio became a matter of escaping the storms. We actually did make it without too much rain falling on us, but the wind and the lightening were pretty scary. Every time I thought we were out from under the storms, more seemed to reappear from the North. Dave and I later surmised that they "had the angle on us".
Everyone got to Breezewood by about 12:30 am. Between the wedding and sitting around the Breezewood Plaza Motor Lodge Best Western, I heard a couple good ones:
What do Jack the Ripper and John the Baptist have in common?
The same middle name. (Note: I was later caught substituting Bozo the Clown for John the Baptist. It still works.)
A large shipment of Viagra was stolen. Police are now looking for "hardened" criminals.
Saturday, June 13
Coupla hours of sleep later, and time to hit the road again. It was Deanna and Jack and their kids in one van and Betsy, Ed, Mom, John, Jill, and J.T. in the other. The two vans took off earlier than Dave and Carol (in their car) and our family (in the wagon). So we went southeast from Breezewood in two smaller caravans.
Everything was going fine, including getting through D.C., until we got to Richmond about 12:00 noon. Then the I64 beach traffic hit. Most of these people were headed for Virginia Beach, not the Outer Banks, but everyone had to travel I64. After we got past the Virginia Beach area, everything was fine again. For a while. We waited in traffic for over an hour to get across the bridge to Kitty Hawk.
Just as we were wondering how the two vans were faring, since the cellular phone idea didn't pan out, who should pull up next to us in the traffic? Jack and Deanna. Due to several J.T. related stops, the other van was further behind.
When we finally arrived, there were lots of "never agains", and lots of sighs of relief. John, Jill, J.T., Mom and Betsy and Ed got there about an hour after the rest of us. As it turned out, J.T. was a real trooper, as he took the trip, and the whole week, in stride. Must be something to do with having a pretty good mom!
Lugging all our "stuff" up 3 flights of stairs was a real chore. Deanna hurt her back somehow. It would continue to bother her for several more days. Dave just plain gave up lugging after a certain point.
There was a frantic supper preparation, in order to accomplish two goals, satisfy our considerable hunger, and finish the grilling before the storm hit. We were successful in both arenas, but what a storm! I think it was the same one that hit Cleveland the night before.
Sunday, June 14
This day didn't start out too good for me. Not only did I have my own personal troubles, Mom, who was the only one up at the time, managed to tell everyone else about my toilet runneth-ing over problems.
This turned out to be a beautiful clear day - with relatively low humidity. It wound up being the best one of the trip in this regard. It was still warm though. Warm enough to spend almost all of it at the beach. The only break in the action came when all the "boys", including some of the large ones, spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get Aaron's little stuffed bunny caught on top of the ceiling fan. I think Austin took this job the most seriously though.
That walk to the beach is a difficult one. We found out that after you climb over one sand dune and think that you're there at the beach, you actually have another one to scale. Funny how many times that fooled me.
Our house, "Sunrise" is real nice. It is not quite as big as Perfect Peace was, and it has two less half-baths, but one big plus is it's swimming pool. That proved to be just the thing for the kids - all 17 of us kids.
Monday, June 15
We got another storm in the early morning, just as Jack, John and Ed were going on their deep sea fishing trip. They went anyway, and although the storm passed away quickly, the water was choppy for them. They caught enough for dinner - mostly Ed's Wahoo, also known as the "chief among fish".
While those guys were gone, Debbie managed to get Dave and Carol upset with a few rounds of "so, what do you want to do today?".
The fish dinner was really good. Debbie, however, started to become a bit militant about going out for dinner instead of cooking for 17 people. Betsy, who also helped with the chores, did not become militant.
Tuesday, June 16
Several folks went on the bird-walk in the morning. They came back talking about gnats, having been reminded of the Journey of Gnatty Dan.
The rest of us got a late start to the day - after all, we were on vacation. Everyone went to the beach, and got involved in the major engineering project of building a sand castle. Since this was much too important job just to leave to the kids, Dave, Jack, John and I got involved, too. It actually came out pretty cool, even though there seemed to be a distinct lack of up-front planning.
Mom, Betsy, Dave, Carol and our whole family went to Kitty Hawk to see the Wright Brothers' Memorial. We learned some interesting tidbits, like the major reason the Wrights chose the Outer Banks was to combine a vacation with their flying aspirations.
Carol's lasagna assembly was a big production. Valerie helped a lot. It turned out real good. The best ever, as I like to say.
Debbie, however, became even more militant about going out for dinner instead of cooking for 17 people.
Wednesday, June 17
Dave wound up with some very interesting sunburn design patterns. He was beginning to look like a patchwork quilt. I don't think that he could replicate those patterns again if he tried. He kept saying that it hurt everyone else more to look at him than it hurt him.
Several of the ladies went trinket shopping. And this was not to be the last time, either.
Everyone went to the Down Under Restaurant in Rodanthe for dinner. It wasn't bad, but their air conditioning was broke, so we were quite hot. The restaurant folks didn't seem to want to take Jack's offer to look into their problem seriously. At least going to this restaurant would help curb the militancy problem for a while.
Thursday, June 18
This time, Debbie and I took the bird-walk. It was very interesting, and we saw and learned tons of neat stuff. Like that the thing sticking out of the water there in Salvo was part of a 19th century shipwreck. And what the commercial fishermen we saw in the morning were going for. (Fish.) Meanwhile, Jack and Deanna took Alissa, Austin and Aaron to a children's nature program, also at Pea Island/Bodie Island.
Dave and I, with the help of several spotters, were trying to rid the ocean of jellyfish. As you can imagine, this is a terribly important job. The spotters (like Jack and Valerie) would find one, and I would catch it in a bucket. Dave would then bury it safely in the sand dunes. Since we didn't finish (I believe that there were at least a few jellyfish left in the ocean), we'll have to come back and complete the job some day.
I can't wait to see the video that John was taking of Jack, Valerie, Alissa and me walking into the ocean. We were looking for more jellyfish, when it will appear to the camera that we all simultaneously screamed and jumped back and straight out of the water. We had seen a Manta Ray!!! He was big and he was looking right at us. Of course we were all well aware that these things won't attack humans, but they sure can startle you when you're not expecting to see one. Did I mention that he was big?
Later on we saw him (or possibly her or maybe other rays) swimming along and followed from the shore. Everyone else on the beach started doing the same, so we had this roving gang of humans running along the shore, watching the creature in the sea.
Debbie, Carol and Mom went to the Elizabethan Gardens. Then the "girls" took their mother-in-law to the Froggy Dog Saloon and they had shrimp and beer.
Dave, Jack, Alissa, Veronica (who had to tear herself away from her doily crocheting) and I went kayaking on the sound. It was nice to go along the shore and then around some islands. We saw egrets and turtles.
Dave started the Bonfire of the Vanities that night.
Friday, June 19
Debbie and I took a nice long walk on the beach first thing in the morning. Lots of the others did the same.
Some of the gang went to Cape Hatteras. Dave and I spent a good part of the day observing the movements of a carpenter bee that we had sent into the pool.
We all went to the Pilot House for dinner. Pretty good, but by the time they could serve all 17 of us, two and a half hours had gone by.
Saturday, June 20
Our family left at 4:44 am and made it home by about 7:15 pm. Not bad! No traffic problems at all this time. The rest of the gang took two days to do the trip.
Maybe we will consider doing this again…
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