Heading Outer Banks

Today is Valentines Day, the Hallmark card day for saying "I love us," or so the ad on TV says. For five months today, Andy and I have traveled in Little Red. That's more than 23,600 miles since we left home on September 14. So Hallmark, here's to us!

At least 19 jet streaks crisscrossed the morning sky and dissipated in feathery lines as we set out on Route #40. Leaving Wilmington and heading north, Andy noticed a sign, Barstow 2545. "That's mileage to California on #40," he said, "so #40 ends --or begins--right here!"

Around Camp Lejeune Marine Base, welcome home sheets clipped to the page fence billowed in the morning breeze. I read a few as we tooled past them. Welcome Home, Brian. William, we love you! Shawn, we hope you slept on the plane. Jimmy, So good you're home. "The boys are coming back," said Andy. And, from the numbers of signs, plenty of families around Lejeune welcomed them home.

Along the beach of Emerald Island, house after house advertised For Sale. Literally, hundreds of homes were on the market. "The insurance on these must be incredible," said Andy. "These are the islands that should not have residences, if you talk to environmentalists. The vacation homes are really nice, in spite of the density, but these barrier islands could disappear overnight in a storm." We parked Little Red and walked to the water. A 25 m.p.h. wind lashed the sand, but the sun warmed the air to 60 degrees.
"It's a good thing the ferry runs in Bogue Sound instead of open ocean," said Andy. "Out here on the water it is so rough, I wonder if they cancel the ferry."
Pine Knoll had fewer houses for sale and many more nestled deep among lower growing pine trees and scrub oak. The town of Atlantic Beach lined the water with motels and high-rises. "It's sad but inevitable that this will be hit by a hurricane someday," said Andy.

"It IS sad, because it's an inviting place," I told him.

We drove to the tip of the 30-mile long barrier island, mostly sand dunes covered with sea oats and scrub trees, but densely populated along the beach. At the north end, Fort Macon entertains more than a million visitors a year as North Carolina's second state park.

Incredibly well preserved and maintained, the fort protected Bogue Bay and Beaufort Inlet in its heyday.

Displays in many of the casement sections described the varied history of Fort Macon and the life of a soldier stationed here. Constructed by local workers and slaves, as ordered by the federal government in 1826, Macon was one of 38 coastal defenses to guard against enemy attack after the War of 1812. For many years only a single caretaker occupied the structure that stood 24 feet above the internal moat floor and took 9,000,000 bricks to construct.

When North Carolina joined the Confederacy, the Beaufort Harbor militia demanded that the federal caretaker surrender. He did, but the demand was unauthorized, and Confederate soldiers moved in almost immediately. A year later Union troops brought cannon, built earthworks outside the fort to mount them and bombarded the fort. On April 26, 1861,when the walls near the powder magazine crumbled from bombardment, the Confederates surrendered. Fort Macon, hit more than 600 times with Union cannonballs, couldn't fight back. Confederates had no mortars to lob at the earthworks, and they had lost 17 of their cannons. The Union moved in.
After the Civil War, Fort Macon was used as a military and civil prison. "Did you read the display about the prisoners?" I asked Andy, as we walked from casement to casement and then toured the impressive museum. "It said each prisoner was forced to wear a 44-pound cannonball chained to his leg as he performed hard labor."

The fort, reactivated in 1898 for a short time in case of Spanish naval attack, housed black troops commanded by black officers, the first post commanded by a black officer in the U.S. Then, after years of abandonment, when snakes and brambles moved into the parade grounds, the federal government sold Fort Macon to North Carolina for $1.00 in 1924, as the state's second public park. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) refurbished the decrepit structure in 1934-1935, and it would have retained its park status if it had not been for the onset of World War II. German U-boats sank or badly damaged 100 Allied ships off the North Carolina coast. But Fort Macon, occupied by coast artillery units of the Army deterred any landing and discouraged further preying upon Allied shipping offshore in what Germany had chosen as the prime target area. After the war, the fort reverted to North Carolina. Today, a beautiful state park, it tells an incredible story of U.S. history.
When we stopped near the beach to take off our jackets in the car, a grey fox ran across the road behind us.

"Those birds with the bright orange beaks that we saw yesterday were black skimmers," I told Andy. "I read about them in the museum."

I took pictures from Cape Lookout Point. The wind blew so hard I had to hold the car door with both hands and hang the camera around my neck. "Are you ready?" I asked Andy, knowing that opening even one car door could create chaos within.

We drove to Cedar Island to check out the ferry location for tomorrow's boat ride. "These people most certainly have to leave when hurricanes threaten," said Andy. Route #12 passed through miles of marsh. At low tide the pavement was barely four feet above the inlets. "A sea of grass," said Andy, "bending and bowing on both sides. I had no idea North Carolina had so much wetlands." Neat little frame houses lined the road in some towns and then marsh grass stretched unobstructed to the horizon. Other towns were primarily trailers and homes that good times had passed by.

From Cedar Island to Ocrocoke is 23 miles by ferry. We'll be at there tomorrow for the 9:30 a.m. boarding.