Month: April 2018

Wright Brothers National Memorial

Posted on by Annie

The year is 1903 and the Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, have been working for four years on how to fly a heavier-than-air craft moving under its own power, under control of a pilot, and without losing speed while underway. On December 17, they did it. Here’s the airfield where it all happened. The red circle shows the starting point of each flight, and the red rectangles show the ending points of each flight that day, with the first flight being the left-most white marker (and each flight was a bit longer in length, so the markers are in order…

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Weekly Update: Apr 11, 2018

Posted on by Annie

It’s mostly been a windy, stormy week here on Cape Hatteras, presented as a series of storms that brought some rain but mostly a fierce and unrelenting wind. As the clouds rolled in early on Saturday, I took this shot at Ocracoke. It was the last time I’d see that yellow orb until Sunday afternoon. Earlier in the week, however, it was a much warmer beach and I actually took my shoes off and walked in the water. With shorts on. And a t-shirt. Yes, the good old days of summer felt like they had arrived. I was wrong. The…

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Sunday Serenity: Weathering the Storms

Posted on by Annie

Some people have visible scars, like this sand dollar does. It’s easy to see that this one is damaged goods and most people would not bother to pick it up off the beach. But it’s a survivor. Something munched on it, or it hit something and everything changed. It still grew, just differently than other sand dollars did. It has a unique beauty as a result of living through the damage. As we go through life, we get worn down and maybe even broken a time or two (or three), like this fragment. Its ridges have been worn smooth by…

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Weathered Shells

Posted on by Annie

Here on the Atlantic side of the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the shells are rarely in one piece. The winds and tides break them up and the beach is littered with the remnants. As disappointing as it might seem to not see fantastic, whole shells, there’s a whole different thing to look at here: weathered shells. Some of them are so smooth, they look more like lacquered wood than seashells. Others look like fragments of ancient tablets, the hieroglyphics too washed out to read. It is the patterns I love, how many different ones there are from maybe a…

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Weekly Update: Apr 4, 2018

Posted on by Annie

If there was a theme to this last week, it would be “Back to the Beach” and the process of getting there in three hops. The secondary theme would be “Don’t Underestimate the Wind.” The first hop was Oyster Point, where a national forest campsite had a lovely trail I enjoyed daily. The Carolina version of a swamp was creepy, in a scary movie kind of way. For one day, though, it was warm enough I could open all the windows and get a proper airing out done, which was sorely needed! The next hop was over to Cedar Island…

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