N.C.’s roadside history markers generate 600K words

From the Wilmington Star News:

The state’s history office is taking the last steps on a long road toward writing a 600,000-word essay on North Carolina – at about 400 words a clip.

Each segment chronicles a stop on the agency’s state’s roadside marker program, which has history at more than 1,500 locations to as little as five lines of text.

For nearly 75 years, the signs have been a dollop of history sufficient for most motorists, some who like to spend a leisurely afternoon driving to search for markers using a state-published directory. But it’s not enough for others in an age of faster cars, distracted drivers and the immediacy of the Internet.

Read the rest of the article at the Wilmington Star News »

Virtual Voyage: The Outer Banks

From MotorBoating.com’s guide to cruising through the Outer Banks:

The Intracoastal Waterway is often described as a sheltered inside passage, but there are portions that can get really nasty when the weather kicks up. This is exactly what happened as you made your way south through Pamlico Sound in North Carolina. Two days of squall lines and bashing into short, steep chop has left the cabin damp and in disarray. Everyone is cold, and your first mate is threatening mutiny.

Continue reading “Virtual Voyage: The Outer Banks” at MotorBoating.com »

National Geographic Traveler on the Lighthouse Coast of North Carolina

One of the travel magazine’s “Drives of a Lifetime” is the 114 miles from Corolla to Ocracoke Village:

Stand on the metal walkway that encircles the lantern room of the Cape Hatteras Light, some 165 feet above ground, and you’ll sense that this towering sentry, which has been saving lives since 1870, is still vital to today’s passing mariners. Looking east, you watch the relentless swells of the Atlantic Ocean paw away at the beach, continuously redrawing the contours of this coast.

Continue reading “Lighthouse Coast, North Carolina” at National Geographic Traveler »

Road trip! Outer Banks is Coastal Living’s No. 2

The magazine names its choices for the Top 10 best road trips in North America. We’re number two!

Why we love it: Map aficionados can’t help but be drawn to this arch of islands curving out from North Carolina’s coast like a spinnaker taking wind. Small towns dot the islands’ landscapes of dunes and long, sweeping beaches. (Nights in Rodanthe was filmed here.) Create a circuit by taking U.S. highways 17, 158, and 64. Back on the mainland, weave through marshlands and historic towns like Edenton.

And what better time to take a nice drive than the fall?

Bloomberg News: Labor Day Finds Americans Staying Close to Home

On North Carolina’s Outer Banks, two of the most expensive rooms in the Cape Hatteras Bed and Breakfast Inn hadn’t been booked for the night of Sept. 4, Catherine Moir, the innkeeper, said that afternoon. A night’s stay ranges from $139 to $159.

Some guests at the nine-room inn with a view of the cape’s black-and-white striped lighthouse stayed three or four days this summer instead of a week, Moir said. Even on vacation, they’re talking about money woes.

“People are worried about their finances and the future of their jobs,” Moir said. “I hear them talking about it at the breakfast table.”

Luckily for some, the Outer Banks is home.

Read the rest of this article at Bloomberg News »

Bangkok traveler calls OBX a ‘Seafood-Lover’s Paradise’

You would think traveler Dmt6600 would be familiar with fine seafood, coming from Bangkok and all – not surprisingly, he appreciates the Outer Banks in this regard, too:

What is really fun is to spend all day catching fish off of the pier and then having the Nags Head Pier Restaurant cook them up for you. After eating, enjoy taking a long stroll on the pier and check out others trying to land a Big One.

Cheap gas means more are expected to drive on holiday

Amid layoffs and foreclosures and the gloom of stubborn recession, the AAA motor club says the summer kickoff holiday will see a 3-percent increase in road trips across the nation. For North Carolina, the rise in holiday traffic could be as much as 5 percent.

Inexpensive gas is part of the reason. Even after pump prices spurted 18 cents higher last week, we’re still paying about $1.50 a gallon less than we did this time in 2008.

Read the rest of the article »

Bicycle maps show safest roads for bicycles

The Bicycle Program of the North Carolina Department of Transportation has undertaken a unique project – the development of a statewide bicycle system along the existing roads of the extensive primary and secondary highway system.

North Carolina has one of the finest highway systems in the nation. However, few people realize the potential afforded for bicycling. Although no roadway where the automobile and bicycle mix will ever be totally safe, there are many roads, unknown to the majority of people, which are relatively safe for bicycling due to their low traffic volumes and good roadway conditions.

Read “The Mountains to the Sea bicycle tour” »

Note: The link in the story to www.ncdot.com should point to www.ncdot.gov

.

Jimmy Buffet among our honored visitors

Parrotheads up! Writes Jimmy: Welcome to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the Graveyard of the Atlantic. I am enroute from New York to Florida like a lot of other people but I am not a snowbird. I live in Florida and spend the summers in Sag Harbor, and the tour is over and fall is the time to travel. As the song says, The Coast Is Clear.

Read “Outer Banks Diary – Part One” on Margaritaville.com »

Far-away Christmas Shop with local ties

There’s another Christmas Shop, little-known to Outer Bankers – it’s in Kings Mills, Ohio! And its owners? Nancy and Ron Greene, he the nephew of our Manteo Christmas Shop owner Edward Greene. Ron saw the light working in his uncle’s shop back in the day.

Read “It’s always Christmas at shop in Kings Mills” »