Nov
03
Yesterday we rode 70 miles through Wilmington NC (a cool little city) and back out to the coast where were were going to take a ferry from Kure Beach to Southport and keep riding. As we were going over the bridge towards Kure Beach a guy named Nat rode up on us (he was visiting his mother who lives in Kure beach) helped us check the ferry schedule and rode with us to the ferry. The ferry that was supposed to depart at 5:30 and 7:00. Of course, because North Carolina is our own personal twilight zone, we encountered this:
That grin on my face is somewhere between disbelief and total resignation to the fact that we are totally unable to leave North Carolina. Also, I think this was just before Nat mentioned that the other way to Southport was back through Wilmington and about a 60 mile trip.
Fortunately for us, Nat’s mum offered to let us stay the night, (oh yeah, the forecast called for rain) and they cooked us up an amazing seafood meal for dinner and put us up in the guest room! Can’t beat that! We were so grateful and, this morning as it’s pouring rain, we’re extra thrilled because they’ve offered to drive us back to our route! We’re going to head down, and have some coffee before we go, but just wanted to say, we are constantly overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers. Thank you!
Nov
02
On Halloween we were in Swansboro, NC and went out that night to shoot halloween in a small town. The first place we went was a Baptist Church that was having a “Fall Festival” as a safe and Christian alternative to Trick or Treating for local kids.
They gave us full access to the festival and we were fascinated to learn about “Trunk or Treat”, a practice where members of the congregation decorate the open trunks of their cars in the parking lot and kids go from trunk to trunk collecting candy. The displays were pretty elaborate. The one below was called Jesus Loves All the Children.
We got lots of interviews at the festival and learned so much about this alternative to Trick or Treating that is apparently pretty popular down here!
Then we headed for a bar called RipTide where the scene was pretty different.
We shot there for a little bit before heading back to the tent to get some sleep.
Last night we made it to Surf City, NC and spent the night listening to the waves crash just outside the tent. The question of the morning was, do you take advice on where to go for breakfast from a man who tells you he’s excited to try the Pork Chop and Gravy Biscuit at Hardees that morning? We did. And now we’re here at little diner where the food is mediocre (and we’ve had some great diner food) and portions are tiny. Oh well. Big lunch for us.
Guess we learned our lesson. We’re pushing hard today ’cause it’s supposed to rain tomorrow and on Tuesday we want to shoot the election in a town called Conway, SC. We’ll see if we can get that far!
Nov
01
As you have been reading the wind has put quite a damper on us enjoying all that North Carolina has to offer. Not only has the wind slowed our pace down, it has taken a toll on our faces. As the wind burn has developed over the last couple of days I have noticed something very interesting which I will display below.
As you can imagine, Mo and I have two very different face structures. My nose is rather large and flat, and Mo’s petite and more pointed. The shapes of our noses have a drastic effect on the wind burn pattern.
Since her nose is so small the wind is not diverted away from her face. Instead it rides along the surface of her entire face and back onto her ears. As a result she is suffering from severe wind burn on her entire face.
I, on the other hand am suffering from an unique, but also severe wind burn. My nose is so big it is actually diverting the wind away from most of my face. So my nose and cheek bones are extremely burned but the rest of my face is unscathed.
You may ask yourself which is better and we cannot come up with an answer. She has a uniform burn all along her face causing her entire face to be sore. I, on the other hand have only three spots that are burned creating a very funky pattern that seems to get people staring.
As a side note we both have large ears that stick out and they are catching the wind like sails, causing nice burns.
We have been collecting advice from people all over about how to take care of the wind burn. If you have any advice feel free to leave a comment. Thanks.
*Green lines have been added to these photographs to clarify the wind pattern. They are not actually on our faces.
Oct
31
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
North Carolina is usually in the 70’s in October, but not lately. We’ve been having weather in the 50’s during the day, with strong winds from the West and in the 30’s at night. Now, tenting in the 30’s… not so fun. In fact, this morning we woke up to our tent raining on us. It had frosted overnight and when the sun hit the tent the frost just started melting in all over our sleeping bags and faces. As my grandma would say: gross.
So because of these super winds, we’ve only been getting in about 40 miles/day. But yesterday, a bridge was out, so we had to backtrack about 6 miles. Then the other road we had on our map turned out to have never been finished, so we backtracked another 4 and rode on what is essentially a highway to get to Cedar Point- which is where stayed last night. About 15 miles from where we started on Thursday morning… except we rode 40 yesterday.
To add to the fun, North Carolina drivers are by far the worst we’ve encountered. Often you feel like they are actually swerving towards you as they pass. We’re not sure what the deal is, but we’re starting to get pretty wary of riding in this state…
So we’re here in Cedar Point doing laundry and waiting for our tent to dry out, trying to find a way around the Military base we have to go by tomorrow. You used to be able to drive through it, but that road was apparently closed about a year ago. So we’ll go the extra 40 miles around- though the main road around is a highway. Sigh. Oh, North Carolina… will be ever be able to get through you?
Oct
29
As we headed out from Waves, we enjoyed a fairly scenic, but totally straight and flat road down the Outer Banks. The only problem was, we had a good headwind. Not too much of one, but enough to knock our pace down from about 17mph to about 12mph.
We caught the first of the two ferries that we needed to take to get off the Outer Banks, and it dropped us off in Ocracoke, NC.
Ocracoke, becides being fun to say, is apparently where Blackbeard the Pirate lived. Ocracoke was beautiful, except for the swarms of man (and woman)-eating mosquitos that could fly as fast as we could ride. We made our way the 13 miles to the town and set up camp near the ferry terminal in hopes of catching the 7am ferry the next morning to Cedar Island. We set off to explore the town a bit, but within literally 15 minutes the wind started to blow. Then it started to really blow- like, knock-me-over blow. We hurried back to the tent, and prepared to stay in for the night, but the wind just kept coming and after not too long, actually bent our tent poles and tore up the stakes. We packed up in the dark in what felt like hurricane winds and walked our bikes (very slowly) to the nearest hotel where we begged them for a room. The obliged and recommended we stay two nights on account of the wind. This morning we awoke to the same high winds (apparently there were sustained gusts up to 50mph), and decided to brave it towards the mainland. So we caught the 10:30 ferry over and had very pleasant company on the tossing 2.5 hour ride from a couple from Yorkshire who were on holiday cycling from NYC to Miami. They were so sweet and so funny, we were sad to see them go, but they checked into the motel on Cedar Island and we pushed on another 12 miles to a campground in a town called, Sea Level.
Just 12 miles? Yes. Because this is what the road looked like:
Now think about riding that on a bicycle with 25-30mph winds coming at you from the south west (the direction this road is facing). It was slow. It was trying. But we made it, AND for the first time in a few days, have internet service to update the blog and map- yay! Tomorrow the wind is supposed to be worse. Not good for us. We’re both wind-burned on our faces and pretty tired and cold. All we can hope is that the bushes next to our tent help keep it down overnight ’cause there sure aren’t any hotels in Sea Level. Keep your fingers crossed for gentle wind!
Oct
29
Of course, when you visit the Outer Banks, you have to stop and see where the first flight took place. Here’s Alan seeing what ti would be like to have been on that first flight:
There’s a neat monument there and a museum, but we didn’t have time because we wanted to get to Waves! Yes, the name of a town on the Outer Banks is Waves. And it certainly lived up to it’s name. It seemed to be pretty much a town of surfers, kite surfers and fishermen, and boy were the beaches beautiful! I was so thrilled to get to put my feet in the ocean… it was so warm and smelled so good- I guess I’ve been really missing the salt air!
We took some photos as the sun went down in Waves and enjoyed some beautiful light.
Our friend’s Rick and Heidi live in Waves where Rick teaches Kite Surfing. Google it if you’ve never heard of it… so cool. Anyway, Heidi was in NH getting certified as a wilderness EMT, but Rick met up with us and it was great to see him for a bit. The next morning we awoke to a glorious sunrise. After photographing it (those shots will be on Photoshelter soon) I had to get a shot of Alan in the tent before we packed up. Just over those dunes is the crashing surf. Not a bad spot to spend a night!
Here’s Alan on the beach in the morning. The sand was so cold it hurt your feet, but when you put them in the water, they warmed right up! Basically the opposite of a New England beach!
A great way to start a day, but we couldn’t enjoy it for too long. We pushed on to try to get off the Outer Banks because we heard bad weather was coming in…
Oct
29
So here we are in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where the riding pretty much looks like this:
Pretty, but also kind of monotonous. Oh, and when you finally get to a town, it looks like this:
No joke. Every town in the Outer Banks looks like that. Giant, giant beach houses right next to each other as far as the eye can see. Then, more beach with nothing.
But we hit 1000 miles!!! Woo-hoo!
Oct
26
Sorry for the few days away from the blog! The nights have been cold and our laptop battery is dying quickly! However, we’re lucky today because we are warm and snug in a hotel on the Outer Banks of North Carolina! But let’s back up. After Windsor, we left our new friend Everett. He went off to a bike shop to pick up a few things and we pushed on.
To North Carolina! Here we are- thrilled to be crossing the state line because we think it’s going to be warmer the further south we get.
Turns out not to be true… it’s pretty cold here too!
We camped just off the Outer Banks behind a local community center in South Mills and then biked the next day all the way to Carrituck, NC where we camped in the field of a local Sheriff named Hank! Hank and his family were amazing, inviting us in for hot showers and some food and he even helped us to get a room at a hotel on the Outer Banks for this weekend (since a storm was coming in and the weather was supposed to be bad… also, we probably looked like we could use some rest)! The next morning Todd (Hank’s brother), loaded our bikes into his truck and took us a bit further down our route to get us off a scary, scary road and over a 3 mile SUPER windy bridge. We are so grateful for their help! Thanks so much guys, we really appreciate it!!
So here we are in a hotel right on the water. We are resting and catching up on blogging, photo uploads (check out our new galleries on Photoshelter), and the never-ending paperwork that goes with running this project! We’ve started transcribing pieces of some of the interviews we’ve done so far to give to publications who are asking for them so they can write articles on us! Yay!
Anyway, here’s a nice sense of what the Outer Banks looks like so far… really pretty scenery!
That grin on my face is somewhere between disbelief and total resignation to the fact that we are totally unable to leave North Carolina. Also, I think this was just before Nat mentioned that the other way to Southport was back through Wilmington and about a 60 mile trip.
