Thursday morning I set my alarm on my phone so my dad could get up and take pictures of the sunrise over the ocean. I'd put my phone on vibrate so it didn't work, but fortunately he woke up in time anyway. 

The Blue Parrot Cafe in Avon

Once we reached Hatteras, we stopped in a Lee Robinson's General Store, which had been written up in the Insider's Guide. It was a nice yellow building, with all kinds of interesting toys and snacks. I was tempted to get a large plastic toad for my office, for ten dollars, but I thankfully resisted. I did get a flexible pencil for fifty cents before I left.

Next, it was time for dinner. We weren't overly hungry, but we thought we might stop at the Blue Parrot, in Avon, if it looked good. My uncle, who likes to come to the area for windsurfing, recommended it. As we approached the restaurant, it was clear that the sunset was going to be worth watching, so I thought we should definitely eat there, if we could. We were not disappointed.

In fact, my dad thought that his meal was the best of the trip so far. He had fried shrimp with rice and vegetables. The rice had just a tinge of horseradish, so it was unusually good. The shrimp were spiced with herbs, so it wasn't your ordinary fried fare. I had Thai sesame shrimp marinated in a banana liquor and grilled with pineapple and vegetables. That was superb.

We were stuffed and declined dessert, but our waitress, who was from upstate New York, said my uncle must not have told us about their key lime pie. We had to try it and finished it off without a problem.

So, given the absolutely fantastic meal and the gorgeous view of the Pamlico Sound, why were we the only ones eating in the whole restaurant? I would recommend it highly to anyone who happens to be anywhere near there. I hope that business picks up soon, so it will be there the next time I'm passing through. As I was leaving, I was not surprised, given the delicious food, to see that two of their recipes have been in the R.S.V.P. section of Bon Appetit.

The interior of the Blue Parrot Cafe was also nifty. I love unusually shaped windows. This was the opposite side of the room from the one with the view of the sound. 

This was the view before we went inside the Blue Parrot Cafe. The eleven mosquito bites I received while we were in Avon were worth it.

On our way back to Hatteras Island, we passed a ferry heading to Ocracoke that wasn't even full. I don't think I've mentioned so far that these ferry rides between Hatteras and Ocracoke are all free.  

Fortunately, we only had to wait 45 minutes or so. They have the cars in one long queue rather than the separate boat length rows on the Hatteras side. Once we boarded, my dad took some cool pictures of the gulls that people were feeding off the side of the ferry. 

We were quite worried when the traffic was backed up quite a distance from the ferry landing. 

Visiting Ocracoke

Once we got on Ocracoke Island, we had to drive 14 miles to Ocracoke Village. Since I generally don't eat breakfast and it was approaching 2 pm, I was a little on the hungry side and getting cranky. Parking is very difficult there, since all the tourists congregate around the restaurants. Fortunately, we found Captain Ben's Restaurant, which had parking in the back. Once I had a menu in my hands, I cheered up a little, although I had a hard time deciding between the crab cake sandwich and the lump crab plater. The friendly waitress said that both were heavenly, but the deluxe crab cake was a better deal. I decided to go with that. I devoured the crab cake sandwich in no time. The cole slaw was good, even though it was mayonaise based. Dad even thought so, which was really amazing. The fries were good, too. I just read on an Ocracoke realty site that the restaurant is for the sale, for a mere $1, 800, 000. You can see on that site just how expensive all the properties are on Ocracoke. One cool thing is that the Winston Salem ham's family and the family parked to the left of us on the ferry ended up eating lunch at the same restaurant. Believe me, there are quite a few restaurants there, so that's quite a coincidence.

Afterwards, my dad and I decided to go back to the dock area for a while. We'd spent a good deal of time there when we last visited the Outer Banks, four years ago. I took several pictures and wandered around until it was just too hot to stay out there any longer.

We decided to look for the lighthouse next, since I hadn't been there before, and it didn't look as if there would be any chance that we could park near it. We drove around and got a good view of it from one of the small streets nearby.

Four years ago, we had gone to a wonderful candy store that was filled with all kinds of goodies. It didn't look as if it were where we remembered it, so we figured it must have gone out of business. Not too long after that, I noticed a sign along the side of the road saying that The Sweet Tooth had moved to a new location across from the gas station. Sure enough, we found it. We weren't sure until we got inside and asked someone if it were the same place that it was the one we remembered. The lady who was filling our fudge order told us that they had rented the old location and the owner was actually able to buy the new one. We got quite a bit of candy: 1/2 a pound of chocolate covered orange peel, 3/4 of a pound of fudge (chocolate, chocolate pecan and chocolate mint), old fashioned candies (Mary Janes, Bit-O-Honeys, Sugar Daddies, gummy fruit slices, sesame candies and smarties), maple candy, dark chocolate nonpareils, and gummy sour cherries. That was all only $23. Wow! They certainly aren't gouging the tourists there.
I also got a root beer float, which was very nice. I really like the picture I took with my phone there, too.

When we left the candy store, we were in a hurry to get back to the ferry, because we heard that that the ferries only operated until 7pm and it was already close to 5pm. We didn't want to be stuck on the island, in case it took as long to get back as it did to get there.

While my dad was taking this shot from the passenger side window, a policeman was asking me what we were doing. Fortunately, he seemed satisfied with my answer that we were photographing the lighthouse. That's probably because I didn't say that we were "attempting a drive-by shooting".

It was a beautiful day, but it was really hot out there. 

My dad unknowingly posed well, too. 

The Canadian geese were very kind to pose for me while I was photographing the dock area. 

On the way to Ocracoke

On Wednesday, the main goal was to drive to Ocracoke Island and back. Basically, it takes a few hours to drive to Hatteras Island and then you have to wait for the next ferry. You can see on this map that I borrowed from a site on Outer Banks Restaurants

approximately how far it is in between Nags Head and Ocracoke, even though there isn't a scale. Keep the eastern edge of North Carolina in mind when you're looking at this and maybe that will help. As you drive south, you pass through the towns listed on the map, which are all comparatively small. Otherwise, one is driving through coastal wildlife refuges and there is pretty much nothing there. I got the impression that as you go south, toward Hatteras, the towns are ritzier. Most of the houses in Avon and Hatteras are huge and gorgeous. There are neat areas where there is water between the road and the houses on the sound side, so the houses look as if they were actually on the surface of the water and there are slightly arched bridges from the road to where the houses are. Next time I should really take some pictures of this, because it looks really wild. At night, on the way back, the lights were reflecting in the water, so it was really beautiful.

Once we got to Hatteras, we had to wait for the ferry for an hour and a half. We really had no idea when we were going to be about to board one, but we feared it would take a while, because there were so many cars ahead of us. It was warm and fairly excruciating, but my dad and I had been making up flash cards so I could study for the ham radio General exam, to upgrade my license, so it was somewhat productive. The ferry ride itself lasts about 40 minutes and was kind of fun, since we were actually moving. One cool thing is that the guy in the vehicle to our right, once we got on the boat, was a ham from Winston Salem.

My dad got a picture of me in the rear view mirror as we got close to the island shore. 

Once we had boarded and were moving, it was a lot more pleasant.

We waited here for an hour and a half, before we got on the ferry. 

Colington Cafe

On Tuesday, while we were still at the gallery, we asked Glenn Eure where we should go for dinner. He recommended Colington Cafe and even made reservations for us. He said to just turn onto Colington Road at the Red Apple filling station and it was on a hill. Once we got back to the hotel, I looked at the Insider's Guide book and it said that it was actually on Colington Island, in Kill Devil Hills, which confused me. Note that the hotel we were staying at was the Ramada Plaza of Nags Head, but it was actually just inside Kill Devil Hills. Sure enough, we followed his directions and saw the restaurant.

The restaurant was beautiful, inside and out. It's an old victorian house surrounded by large gorgeous trees. I am thrilled to see that the cafe has a website. My dad and I sat at a table in the sunroom that's pictured on the site, just in front of the door. You can see the photo of my shrimp pasta entree that I posted earlier this week. The dessert was fantastic, too. Overall, it was a very pleasant dining experience.

The entrance and more trees at Colington Cafe.

Some of the beautiful trees in the parking lot for Colington Cafe. 

Gallivanting at Gallery Row

Gallery Row is a street in Nags Head between Highways 158 and 12, containing mostly art and craft galleries. Our first stop was at Jewlery By Gail. In the front room, there were several counters of jewelry by the owner and jewelsmith, Gail Kowalski. The woman working there showed me and handed me several beautiful pieces, including one $49,000 diamond ring, which had recently won an award. It's like holding a fancy new BMW in your hand. That ring had a brownish diamond. Of the colored diamonds she had, I like the lavendar diamonds the best.
In the room off to the side, there was jewelry made by other artists. I looked at many neat things that I definitely couldn't afford. I did manage to find a $30 pair of amber studs that are cool. They were a real bargain, compared to the diamonds! There was a pair of green garnet studs that I coveted, but fortunately, I couldn't afford those either.

We went to the Lighthouse Gallery, which contained a lot of touristy type things, including lots of lighthouses and such. I did find a nifty glass frog that I couldn't resist. We briefly went in the Sally Huss Gallery, which sold many brightly colored whimsical creatures.

Finally, we went to Glenn Eure's Ghost Fleet Gallery of Fine Art. Eure is an extremely gregarious gallery owner and artist. His painting and drawings have a wide variey of styles and subject matter, from coastal themes, to clowns and abstracts. I decided that I needed to buy one of his abstracts, which apparently resulted from a combination of serendipitous ink flowing and doodling. I thought it was very cool. There were actually several of his paintings that I would have loved to take home with me. In addition to Eure, we talked to a music professor from Western Carolina, Dr. Frasier, who was putting up a exhibition featuring his paintings.

There were some neat plants outside Jewelry by Gail.

Travel Guide Obsolescence

Now that I'm back, I can report in detail about my adventures at the Outer Banks. I've also gotten rid of the "Picture Share!" annoyances and the punctuations weirdnesses from my posts sent from my phone earlier this week.

After we arrrived on Monday, my dad and I quickly ventured out to Owen's Restaurant, where we enjoyed the lobster bisque and coconut shrimp pictured earlier. I had a difficult time deciding whether I wanted the appetizer or dinner sized portion of the shrimp and the cup or bowl of bisque. Had I not been starving, I would probably still be there today. Well, maybe not.

Tuesday morning started out somewhat gloomy, but it seemed like a perfect day to go look for galleries. The Insider's Guide to the Outer Banks (22nd Edition) had a listing for the Crafter's Gallery. My dad and I drove up and down Highway 158 looking for it, without any luck. I tried calling, but there was no answer. In hindsight, the reverse order of procedures might have made sense. Then we drove to Kitty Hawk to look for the Kitty Hawk Pier Restaurant, which we couldn't find either. They told us at a gas station that Hurricane Isabel had taken it out. By then, we were hungry, so we went to a barbecue restaurant across the street, called the High Cotton.

The barbecue was actually quite good and I'm fairly picky about barbecue. What native North Carolinian isn't? I just had a sandwich, because I had noticed that there was an ice cream shop in the same area. My dad shared his cornbread with me and it was good, but it wasn't excellent. I'm very picky about cornbread, too. In fact, I'm a lot pickier about cornbread than I am barbecue.

Afterwards, we went next door to the book store. The extremely nice owner explained to us that the Kitty Hawk Pier Restaurant was being replaced by a Hilton. She said that Isabel had taken out the pier, too. She also sold us a map. While, as she and her daughter pointed out, it was out of date, it proved to be quite useful. After googling, I can report that the completion of the Hilton is scheduled for June 1st of 2006.

Next, we went down to the ice cream store. They had peppermint, my favorite flavor, so I was happy. They also had sugar cones. My dad bet that he would be able to have my leftovers, but he was wrong. Well, he got the last bite.

Then, it was off to Gallery Row, further south, in Nags Head...

Here is a view of the construction of the new Hilton from across the street, where I spent the early part of Tuesday afternoon. 

It was a gloomy, but cool looking start, to our first day in Nags Head. 

Lobster and Puffed Pastry

Lobster Newburg from Owen's Restaurant. We had to go a second time.

Peering from a Pier

View from Nags Head fishing pier.

Kitty Hawk Kites

We went to Kitty Hawk Kites yesterday. The store is very colorful.

Sunset over the sound

This was the view from The Blue Parrot Cafe in Avon. The food was so good that I forgot to photograph it.

Sweetest part of Ocracoke

I went to The Sweet Tooth on Ocracoke Island. That is my idea of shopping. They have all kinds of candy...old fashioned, fudge, sour stuff...you name it.

Colington Cafe

Tonight I had shrimp, smoked salmon and pasta at the Colington Cafe in Kill Devil Hills. Dessert was the "Tollhouse"...a gooey chocolate and walnut thing.

Chunks of lobster

Owen's Restaurant has lobster bisque that is out of this world.

Coconut Shrimp

Last night's coconut shrimp at Owen's Restaurant.

The Arrival

I am at the Outer Banks! Here is the view from my room in Nags Head.

Dining on Dumplings and Deck Furniture

Yesterday, my dad, DE and DT made great progress on the generator project. They pulled the heavy wires through from the meter to the new transfer switch.

Last night, I met JJ and JA at Starlu, in Durham. They had been there before and thought it was "ok", but they wanted to give it another chance. I have to agree with their first assessment. I ordered roasted chicken, which was an unusual choice for me. It was quite salty and that was the main flavor, with no obvious herbs added. It came with a warm eggplant salad and some itty bitty potato dumplings. I liked the dumplings a lot. Dessert was good. We shared a lemon buttermilk cheesecake with peach and blueberry compote. I'd say the meal was good, but every meal I've ever had at ACME was so much better. The entree prices were reasonable, all in the mid teens, but the desserts were expensive. Most of them were $7. Of course, the company was excellent.

This morning, the squirrels started eating my cumaru deck furniture! I was not happy about this at all. My mom came over and sprayed Liquid Fence on the furniture, so hopefully that will curb their appetite a bit. It stopped their eating the buds on the anise bushes, so maybe it will work.

Tonight my parents and I ate at Eastern Lights. We had yet another wonderful meal there, with roast pork with green onions, shrimp and lobster sauce and Mandarin chicken. We, of course, got potstickers for an appetizer. It's definitely the place to go if you want a guarantee that you're served an excellent meal.

Photogenic FIFO

I am visiting FIFO this evening. It has been a while since I have been over here. He is still cuter than ever.

Shrooms and Tempura

Tonight we noticed these mushrooms in garden, just outside my front door. It's been raining constantly for the last couple of days and we're still four inches behind for the year.

My parents and I had just gotten back from Oishii, in Chapel Hill. This time I just had shrimp and vegetable tempura. I really wanted to have some sushi, but I resisted, in an attempt to save money. The tempura is more fried stuff than I'm used to eating and I actually preferred the veggies, particularly the brocculi. The booth next to ours actually had a leftover piece of eel on their tray. I can't imagine abandoning a piece of eel. No, I didn't ask for it or take it.

Check out StoreWars!

Cheap phalaenopsis from CostCo

I took this picture of my $16 orchid yesterday morning. It was gloomy and rainy, so I needed the flash. This past weekent, my mom counted 57 blooms on it. That's pretty amazing.

Soggy Wednesday

It's been raining lightly here for much of the day. As I was leaving work this evening, there was a robin gorging on earthworms that would otherwise get stranded on the sidewalk. It was so focused on carrying several at a time that I was able to get very close to it. I would have taken a photograph, but I really didn't feel like being in the cold (for this time of year) rain more than I had to.

I've been reading the latest installment of recipes from Epicurious.com. I recommend this site if you don't already subscribe to the tradtional cooking magazines. Even if you do, it's a great way to search on their contents. They literally have all recipes from Bon Appetit, Gourmet and possibly a few other. I was originally recommended this site by WH.

I just heated up some Jonathan T.'s frozen spanakopita, from Sam's Club. It's very good, but it's also very warm.

Last night I went to the Durham FM Association board meeting. I haven't been to one of those in a very long time. It was held at Bennet Pointe Grill. I had a "peasant's pasta with shrimp", which was pretty good. I resisted ordering some of the creamier pasta dishes, which sounded even better, due to the implied parmesan content. There was a lot to discuss at the meeting, so it was unusually long. The topic of what to paint on the mobile communications unit (translates to bread truck with mobile ham radios in it) was way too reminiscent of GUI design to me. I don't care as long as it doesn't look too much like an ambulance. Fortunately, it's very difficult for a bread truck to look like an ambulance, so I think we are pretty safe.