OBX

In recent years we’ve rented houses on New Jersey’s Long Beach Island for a week and hosted our kids and their families. This year, we decided to try something new: Donna and I rented a house on North Carolina’s Outer Banks for a week to kick off summer with our children and their families. It was one of the best family vacations we’ve had.

The weather was fantastic the entire week. The ocean water was so warm that even Donna got in. The beach was composed of soft, powdery sand and the waves were mostly calm. Skittish ghost crabs, with their pincers up and their eyes atop periscope-like stalks, would partially emerge from their hiding holes in the sand, cautiously sidestep a couple feet, then dart to another hole. Patrols of pelicans, rarely seen at LBI, were ubiquitous, and we saw dolphins arching just past the breakers nearly every day.

The house Donna had found – she has a knack for finding great vacation houses – was perfect. Oceanfront with private beach access. Pool. Seven bedrooms and seven baths on three levels. A main kitchen with two stoves, two dishwashers and two sinks, a second kitchen. A big common room and private office on each floor. And all the amenities for a party of 12.

We were in Corolla, the northern-most town on the OBX. There’s not much going on there, which suited us just fine. No boardwalk, little commercial development, lots of vegetation. Big rental houses lining the ocean and a block or two of similar houses behind them in a few housing tracts. There’s a big grocery store that sells alcohol six minutes away, a fitness center with a tennis bubble two minutes away, an ice cream shop, a couple souvenir shops, and not much else.

It was a great opportunity for our five grandkids to interact. The oldest, Corinne, made a point of playing with the twins, our youngest grandkids, and the young ones started playing with each other, mostly in the pool. It was great to see.

Jack, our son, flew in from Los Angeles the day before our departure to drive down with us. It was our first time seeing him since Christmas. We talked and laughed for hours, and went to a local Mexican joint for dinner and margaritas, as is our tradition. The next morning we packed up the car (big thanks to Jack for his muscle) and headed out.

We thought normally congested Capital Beltway and I-95 through Northern Virginia wouldn’t be too bad on a Sunday at mid-morning. Not true. It was a slow, arduous slog that had the GPS continuously revising back our ETA.

We arrived around 5pm and did a quick tour of the house before unloading. Eileen and her family had arrived before us and were doing the same. Kate and her boys and a helper arrived the next afternoon.

We all got into a rhythm of going to the beach in the morning after breakfast, coming back for lunch at the house, then after naps for the littles, pool time. 

Before breakfast, Donna and I would make coffee and watch the orange-red sun rise out of the ocean; Eileen often would join us, with one or more of her kids following soon thereafter.

Jack was incredible with the grandkids. He clowned with them, played with them, did magic tricks for them, and generally engaged them all week. 

The grandkids, for their part, adore their Uncle Jack and fought over who got to play with him, who got to sit next to him at mealtime, who got to walk with him. 

It was as if he were Ariel, Moana, Prince Charming, the Paw Patrol characters, and Mickey Mouse incarnate in one body, and all the other adults were extras in the show. He had very little time to himself until the grandkids went to bed each night.

Donna and I got away a couple times – once for dinner in Duck at a very nice restaurant (Kimball’s Kitchen, affiliated with the Sanderling Resort) and once for a tour of the wild Spanish mustangs in the undeveloped (or little developed) northern tip of the island.

Wild Horse Adventure Tour

The Wild Horse Adventure Tour was an amazing experience. We met in the morning at the tour group’s headquarters, boarded large, 12-passenger Humvees, and headed north. Rte. 12, the main highway on the island, terminates about ten miles north of where we stayed; or rather the paved portion of Rte. 12 gives way to the beach. 

The state highway technically continues north on the beach. Four-wheel-drive vehicles are mandated, and it’s a free-for-all on the beach, with trucks and SUVs going north and south pretty much wherever they please at speeds limited to 35 mph (or in some areas, 15 mph). Their destinations are either one of two enclaves of houses that are nestled among protected land for the horses, or to park on the beach for day-tripping. 

That’s correct: In the middle of the traffic there would be parked cars, usually with adjacent tents, and families frolicking toward the sea.

Soon after we joined the sandy commuters a beautiful mare came romping down from the dunes and planted herself in the middle of the beach, putting traffic on a temporary stop. Our driver and tour guide managed to deftly thread our way through the other cars and slowly orbit the quadruped so we could all get a good look and a good photo.

The horses, descended from herds brought here by Spanish explorers 500 years ago, are the only surviving wild Spanish mustangs in the world. They have short legs, stocky bodies, and fur that is fluffier than domesticated horses, according to the Currituck County Department of Travel and Tourism’s website.

Our guide drove us along the beach for a few miles, then hung a left into and over the dunes to a cluster of homes along sand roads. Other than garbage pickup, there are no support services here – no food markets, clinics, schools, or eateries. There is electricity. It is a good location for hermits and outlaws.

Among the houses (80 percent of which are vacation rentals, according to our guide), we saw several clusters of a few horses. The entire wild horse population is about 100. We drove around one enclave, then went to the other, then to a preserve managed by the non-profit Corolla Wild Horse Fund, which has oversight of the protection and conservation of the wild mustangs.

Seeing the horses and learning about them was memorable. But seeing a new-to-us culture of off-the-grid, reclusive vacationers parked far away from basic amenities in the sand was really impactful for me.

The Outer Banks was a remarkable experience, and one we hope to enjoy again someday.

Below are more pictures....