With Memorial Day weekend behind us, summer is said to be in full swing. It’s that time of year when most people will take a vacation to some place new and exciting, or return to a favorite location close to their hearts. I fall into the latter category, and while my vacation won’t happen until right after Labor Day, I’m already impatient with anticipation about our trip to my favorite place in the world, the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
Many Pittsburghers are frequent visitors to the affectionately nicknamed “ribbon of sand” that juts precariously out into the Atlantic Ocean, and my (and my family’s) history with the place started a long time ago. My grandparents began visiting the spot for themselves in the seventies, and I grew up listening to my mom and her siblings tell stories about camping on the beach countless times throughout my childhood. I even remember, at about age six, having a tiny pink t-shirt that read “Nags Head, NC.” “What’s Nags Head?” I remember asking my mom, puzzled over the odd sounding first word and its partner. “A town near the beach,” she replied.
I’d have to wait until the summer I was eleven before experiencing this “Nags Head” myself, and although that first trip was more than twenty years ago, it was the start of my love for a place whose charm, history, and undeniable sense of peace has settled into my heart and soul.
Any article or vacation website can tell you about the unspoiled beaches, the original oceanfront cottages from the early 1900’s, or the family-owned restaurants dotting the coast on this 130-mile stretch of barrier island. But over my ten visits to this beautiful spot, I’ve learned to appreciate more of the little things that would stir any traveler’s soul.
For me it started by learning how to swim in the tumultuous ocean – jumping over waves, letting them roll over or under you, and how to recover when one knocked you out flat. I learned to deal with the burn and tang of salt in my eyes and nose, and the scrape of the sand against sunburned skin. I spent countless nights being rocked to sleep in a beach house on stilts that swayed in the coastal winds, and although I was entranced by their beauty and elusive nature, to admire the wild horses of Corolla from a distance.
The horses, which are descendants of wild Colonial Mustangs, are just one piece of history Outer Banks offers. That history, like the ocean, is also something that took time for me to learn to understand and respect. As a preteen, and even a teenager, I was always slightly bored by the Wright Brothers Museum and the ubiquitous posters depicted the “Graveyard of the Atlantic.” But as I grew older, I found myself drawn to the varied past of the place and really started paying attention and seeking out information. I could spend hours writing or talking about the historical significance of the towns, but for now it will suffice to say that considering its relatively small size and secluded location, history is as varied here as it is in almost any town in the US.
The Wright Brothers Memorial commemorates the first successful, sustained flight in the sandy dunes of Kill Devil Hills, and although it was significantly larger decades ago, Jockey’s Ridge National Park is still home to the largest sand dunes on the East coast. The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was one of the last recipients of Titanic’s distress call in 1912. That same lighthouse was actually moved inch by inch in 1999 to save it from beach erosion. And Virginia Dare, who the “beach road” is named after, was the first American-born child in the English Colonies of the New World.
While absorbing all of this history, I also found an explanation about my Nags Head t-shirt from so long ago. In the sixteen and seventeen hundreds, ships were lured close to shore on dark nights by lanterns hung from a horse’s–or—nag’s—head head and walked along the dunes, causing the ships to wreck in the shallow shoals. Pirates were responsible for many of these wrecks, and their ships, which were stocked with barrels of rum, went down in the churning sea. The rum they carried was said to be strong enough to “kill the devil,” and certain contraband, so when those barrels washed ashore, they were buried in the dunes of the beach. Hence the name “Kill Devil Hills.” Today, more than 1,000 shipwrecks have been documented off the coast, and many of them can still be seen from a plane, or even poking up from the sea floor during low tide. One of those shipwrecks even belonged to the infamous Blackbeard, whose last battle took place off the coast of Ocracoke in 1718.
It took two decades and ten or so visits to the Outer Banks for me to discover all of this, and so much more. And while this history and entertainment is certainly part of the reason I fell in love with the place, I also now believe I was on these beaches during significant times in my life. The first few visits found me struggling with adolescence and self-esteem, then growing to a confident and fearless teenager. When I was eighteen, the trip to the beach served as a sort of balm for the recent death of my grandfather, one half of the team who had discovered this family vacation spot so long ago. And when I brought my boyfriend –now husband—to the Outer Banks in 2009, I was excited to share it with him, but nervous that he would think it boring after his repeated cruises to the Caribbean. I was over the moon when he smiled at me over the table at Awful Arthur’s, declaring that he had just eaten the best tuna in his life, and I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him as we watched the sunset from Jockey’s Ridge and he lamented with me on our last night at the Atlantic Street Inn.
I always tell people that I cry when I arrive in the Outer Banks, and I cry when I leave. But in between those tears, I spend time shopping unique boutiques, soaking up the sun on the weathered deck of a beach house, and breathing in the salt air that seems to put a spell of tranquility on anyone within its reach. One day, I hope to call this place my home.
Stacy is a 2003 graduate of West Mifflin Area High School and has completed two courses with The Institute of Children’s Literature. She writes novels for teenagers and adults, both of which can be found on Amazon. Stacy lives in Munhall with her husband and fur kid, and besides writing, enjoys reading, Penguins hockey, and traveling.
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