OBX 2012 - part 1

 I am back safe and sound (more on the safe part tomorrow). We got back Monday night around 10 p.m. We had a really good and eventful vacation. Due to lots of wind and dangerous rip currents my dreams leading up to vacation of laying out on the sandy beaches all day everyday were quickly tossed aside. There were winds up to 20-30 mph which also put a challenge on our camping too. We were going to pack up and move up the coast to Virginia Beach but decided to stick it out and I am really happy that we did. 

I hope you are ready for a picture overload.

On the road! Anthony, Trevor, Me, Maddy and Shalene

We drove through the night so I don't have any pictures from on the way down.

 This was the road going into Rodanthe. It was so desolate and the sand dunes were amazing.

 our campsite

 heading to the beach

 us girls on the beach for the 1st time

 First stop was The Fishin' Hole to get some supplies and I got a new fishing pole!

 Since these flags were flying at all the beaches we ended up doing lots of sightseeing while the guys got their fishing in. We made it to all of the light houses on the Outerbanks within a couple days. 

 Bodie Island Lighthouse. Built in 1872 and 156 feet tall. They are currently working on it so we were not able to go in it.

 Currituck Lighthouse. Located in Corolla, built in 1875 and is 162 feet tall.

Ocracoke Lighthouse located on Ocracoke Island. It was only accessible by ferry to the island which was free, even to take your car too! This one is the smallest of the lighthouses we saw (77 feet) and is the oldest operating lighthouse on the North Carolina Coast.

Cape Hatteras. 198 feet and we climbed to the top of this one! It is 248 steps to the top and was extremely windy at the top. 

Since it was so windy and no swimming allowed on the beaches we hit up the gorgeous pool at our campground whenever we weren't sight seeing. 

The house from the Nicholas Sparks movie Nights in Rodanthe was in our town so we had to go check it out. I did some research before we left and found my way back to Hooked on Houses and read about how the new owners actually moved the house to its new location are remodeled it to look like the movie set. I wanted to get some up close pics but there was a family renting it for the week so I didn't want to be rude. 

That is all for today but I will definitely be posting more about our trip in the next couple days. So make sure you check back for more gorgeous pictures of the beaches and sunsets and sunrises maybe even a little picture tour of our campground.