Visiting the Outer Banks Part 2

Outer Banks Part 1

After we visited the Wright Brothers Memorial, we stopped for some lunch, then made a stop for some salt water taffy for my mom and sister and coffee for my dad and I before driving out to the Bodie Island lighthouse. 

My mom has always liked lighthouses, so we made sure to stop by three of them on this trip! 

We didn't go inside the visitor center, we just took a few pictures and then continued on our way.

We drove along highway 12 for a while before we made it to the town of Rodanthe where we found a public beach access.

There was no one else at the beach, so it was nice to have it to ourselves while we were there! This beach though, had pretty treacherous water. The tide was going out, which made it even more dangerous. You could see quite a few rip currents and the waves really crashed on the beach.

We only stayed at the beach for maybe an hour, maybe two. We didn't really keep track of time! But regardless, we didn't stay too long.

We got back in the car and started heading back towards Nag's Head. It was too early to go back to the hotel, but we weren't really sure what else to do. When we saw the turnoff for Manteo on Roanoke Island, we decided to head over there. 

We drove through Manteo and out toward Fort Raleigh/Lost Colony of Roanoke. It was close to closing time at the visitor center, I think there was maybe 20 minutes until closing, but when we got inside a volunteer came over and started talking to us. She told us all about the history of the area and different theories about what happened to the settlers. It was all very interesting and had we had more time we would have explored more. (If you aren't familiar with the Lost Colony of Roanoke, you can read more about it here.) The grounds stayed open though, so once the visitor center closed we walked around the grounds for a bit before getting in the car and heading back to the hotel.