For the past few years, my parents had been talking about taking my family and my sister’s family on a nice vacation.
We had talked about Myrtle Beach, but late last fall as we were checking on Myrtle Beach, we came across places to stay in the Outer Banks. It was a bit cheaper and a lot less commercialized.
We settled on a nice house with four bedrooms, a hot tub and, most importantly to my sister, an outdoor shower to wash the sand off the kids before they entered the house.
The house was in the perfect location as it was located in South Nags Head, which is away from the shops, stores and restaurants. Even better was that those places were only about a three-mile drive from the home we rented, so we really lucked out on picking the place, since none of us had ever been there.
It was nice and relaxing. From our deck we could see the Atlantic Ocean looking between the houses across the street. To the back was marshlands where the crickets chirped and the frogs croaked.
We spent mornings taking in the local tourist spots and the hot, muggy afternoons at the beach, pool or both.
Of course, since we were tourists, we had to do the touristy stuff. We hit the sand dunes at Jockeys Ridge State Park, the Bodie Island lighthouse and the Wright Brothers Museum and National Monument at Kill Devil Hills.
In addition, my sister killed two birds with one stone. She always has trouble figuring out what to get my daughters for their birthdays, which are coming up this fall, so she suggested that she take them on a dolphin watching tour. So early one morning we loaded up and went searching for dolphin. After about 40 minutes of cruising around on a boat that is run by dolphin researchers, we found at least four dolphins and possibly up to eight.
The kids loved keeping a look out for the dolphins to come up for a breath of air, before swimming off. One of my daughters said it was the best birthday present she had ever received.
Of course we hit the beach about four times to do a little swimming and let the kids play in the sand. The three older kids and I tried to boogie board, but only my older daughter and I figured out which waves were the ones that we could ride.
If it was too hot or windy (the sand pelted us one day), we would go to the pool that was part of our development. The kids loved showing off new tricks, climbing around on me and getting tossed into the deep end.
The highlight was para-sailing with my sister. It was a beautiful, sunny and very hot day when we left dock and headed to the Roanoke Sound. Pretty soon we were soaring above Roanoke Sound as 900 feet of cord had been let out of the boat, which put us at a height of about 550 to 600 feet.
My sister, who is very brave, mentioned that she was a bit leery to look straight down. But after some coaxing and me clucking like a chicken, she gave in and looked down.
The view was awesome and it almost felt like you were flying like a bird as just a harness was holding me up.
It was a great vacation spot and very relaxing. My youngest daughter even cried the last day and was very grumpy when we had to leave.
She told grandma and grandpa that she was looking forward to going back next year and they laughed, saying it was a once-in-a-lifetime trip and they better talk to me if she was going to go back.
By Mark Heiman, sports writer
