Wright Brothers National Memorial & Currituck Beach Lighthouse

Gretchen drove to Bahama on Friday and we headed out on Saturday morning for the Outer Banks for a week at the Beach. We left on a cloudy morning and it stayed cloudy all the way there, but didn't start raining until we had the stuff unloaded into the condo. We're at a small timeshare in Nags Head right on the beach...our little house is right next to the dune, but protected from the ocean by that same dune....and this week might be a good thing! We did go out on the beach not too long after we got here and it was VERY WINDY, VERY COLD and rough waves.

This morning we got up to more clouds and wind. We attended church at St. Andrew's by the Sea just down the road in Nags Head. After Church we headed for the Wright Brothers National Memorial. When we got there we drove around the loop drive that goes around the large memorial on the top of the hill. We stopped and walked up to the Monument The 60-foot monument atop Kill Devil Hill honors the Wright brothers and marks the site of the hundreds of glider flights that preceded the first powered flight. It was a very chilly walk.

The Wright Brothers Monument

We then drove on around to the 1903 Sculpture of the flight. That was great!

The replica of Orville's first flight on that historic day. The plane and members of the support team are all there. Orville did the first flight and was up 12 seconds and went 120 feet. Then Wilbur flew for 12 seconds and went 175 feet. Orville then did the third for 15 seconds and 200 feet and then Wilbur did the fourth for 59 seconds and 852 feet!

Gretchen helping Orville on his first flight.

They had actually had a big celebration last Friday commemorating the December 17th historic flight--they didn't look nearly as bundled up as we were!!

The rail the plane moved down before take off. The statue of Wilbur is to the right.

We then headed into the Visitor's Center where they have a full scale reproduction of the 1902 glider and the 1903 flying machine. We were about the only people here so the Ranger there really gave us a great talk about how the wing worked etc. Excellent!!

Replica of the 1903 flying machine.

Anemometer, timer and compass they used to time their flights etc.

Then a quick trip through the museum and then on up the road to the Currituck Beach Lighthouse in Corolla. There is a wonderful park there. Unfortunately the Lighthouse was closed (as is much on the Outer Banks at this time of the year), but we were able to walk onto the grounds and get some good pictures - and we had the whole place to ourselves.

There is a wooden bridge with some impressive beam work that crosses one of the small streams


that runs into the Atlantic and leads over to the Whalehead Club, a historic hunt club from the 20's, so we wandered over there and then along the coast and back to the car...another chilly walk, but the sun was out by then.

Lighthouse from the park.

We had a pretty sunset on the way back up the Island and when we got home the moon was out so we hopped over the stairway to the beach and got this nice moon on the water shot.

A quick dinner and we brought out the games and played for awhile before we hit the sack. Nice day....good things we brought our woolies!