We (well, Jeff) started the day at sunrise. He wanted to watch the sun come up over the Atlantic one more time. Today, the plan was to visit the Wright Brothers' monument and museum, the attraction that got us interested in the Barrier Island in the first place, and then carry on our drive.
What a wonderful job they've done with the site of the first flight. The thing I like most about it the most is that there is a lot that they simply left alone. There was a visitor centre with models of the planes, information, artifacts etc. They've constructed models of the brothers' summer camp building and "hanger" (shed), and markers that showed the starting point of each of four consecutive flights on the day of the first successful test of their flying machine. The last of which was just under a minute. That's it. Other than the markers showing the length of the first flights, it's pretty much left like it was when then brothers lived there. Standing on that big windy field you could really feel the marvel of the accomplishment of that first flight.
Behind that, up on the top of Kill Devil Hill, is the monument. Alongside, behind some trees was a small runway. Several planes landed and took off over the markers of the first flights. Wow, aviation has come a long way in a short time! I really liked the balance of simplicity and respect, shown by the beautiful monument on top of the hill. It was quite moving and certainly captured our interest to learn more.
It was fun watching the kids climb all over the sculpture depicing the first flight of the Wright Brothers. That's the stuff dreams are made of.
We left Kitty Hawk, Big Apple bound. Our plan was to drive part way and grab a hotel room, poising us perfectly to drive into the city in the morning, when we're fresh and in daylight. To get there our route took us over the mouth of Chesapeake Bay on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. Yep, they couldn't decide I guess so they built a bit of both. Bridge and tunnel. It's a twenty-three mile long drive with two tunnels and a bunch of bridges linked together to span the bay. It's quite fun to drive: Now we're above the ocean/now we're below the ocean/above/below....
We are now somplace in Delaware, ready to head into the big city in the morning. Eeee... excited!! We're hearing all sorts of nasty rumours about the weather at home in Canada. Snow and very cold temperatures. Um, what happened to the early spring?! As we're moving back onto our Northern Boat we're a little concerned but, what's the worst that could happen?... Oh, never mind.
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