Outer banks

The day has arrived.

I've stayed all this time to make the most of this moment, this week. A family trip to a place I've always had a special place for in my heart, the outer banks. These string bean barrier islands dangle off the coast of North Carolina far out into the breakers of the Atlantic, separated from the mainland by a wide sound. These yearly trips were one of the highlights of my childhood, as good as it got for me.

Following these tenuous, pensive, utterly beautiful islands south a highway hangs like a tightrope thread between waters on both side. Beyond the commercialism and development of Nags Head and the northern banks, the road narrows and people disappear. Much of the banks is protected as part of the Pea Island Wildlife Refuge and Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Here, there is nothing but the howl of the winds over the dunes, contorting constantly like sidewinders. Many seabirds nest in the lee of the winds on these sandy scrub islands. A landscape sculpted like bonsai to the relentless roar of the winds crashing off the Atlantic. It is a soulful sort of place.

Most people know the banks best from the yearly hurricane reports that echo back to the mainland from these shape shifting islands. No doubt the weather out here is moody and temperamental now during the hurricane season, but it can be so incredibly calm and still here too. It was like this when we arrived to our cottage on the tip of Cape Hatteras, meeting my Uncle Steven, Aunt Judy, and cousin Kevin, and my brother and his girlfriend too.

There was so much memory, nostalgia, and beautiful warm hues of light in the late afternoon I had trouble deciding on which picture to blip. I walked the beach line and bicycled to the tip of the island and in the end had to choose this one. Dead calm, catching the last aura of the sunset silhouetted over the sound.