Jenny Block, left, and her wife during their vacation on The Outer Banks
JENNY BLOCK | Contributing Writer
JennyEBlock@icloud.com
As much as I love a luxury beach resort, for me nothing beats a house high on stilts on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
I started going there years ago when I lived in Richmond, Va. We’d pack the car up to the ceiling with chairs and toys and towels and coolers. Our duffels and boat bags were overflowing with bathing suits and cut off jean shorts and sundresses with ribbon ties at the shoulders.
We’d leave town early hoping to beat the traffic on the bridge — only one way in and one way out. So, Saturdays and Sundays, when the rental contracts there typically begin and end, were the busiest days on the bridge.
One summer, I was a company member at the country’s oldest outdoor drama, The Lost Colony, that tells the story of “Sir Walter Raleigh’s final expedition to the New World and the 117 men, women and children who disappeared into mystery,” nestled in the woods in Manteo Island.
I was a dancer in the show. We performed every night — except for Mondays and nights when lightening filled the sky — all summer long, 83 shows if memory serves.
It was one of the best summers of my life, one I would go back to in a minute if I could.
When my daughter was born, I began taking her to the Outer Banks, and she fell just as hard for the sandy dunes covered in hearty beach grass and sea grass, the cedar shake and clapboard houses and the miles of waves crashing into the shore.
This summer, despite living 20 hours away instead of three or four, we packed up the car — just as I had so many summers before — and headed for the Outer Banks. I rented a house months in advance, as one is well-advised to do, and we arrived early on a Sunday morning after three days of driving, gratefully missing the typical traffic.
We stopped for breakfast at Biscuits and Porn as soon as we arrived. No. That’s not a typo, it is indeed called Biscuits and Porn. It’s little more than a counter in a gas station that happens to sell dirty magazines. But the biscuit sandwiches will knock your socks off. Trust me.
We rented a two-bedroom house from Joe Lamb Jr. and Associates, one of the best and longest-running agencies in the Outer Banks. The house is right on the ocean in Kitty Hawk, close to all of my favorite haunts.
Each day we packed a cooler with lunch and drinks and set up our comfy matching Copa chairs and sun shade in the sand. Nothing tastes as good as a turkey sandwich and a bag of chips on an old school family beach vacation.
And, of course, we’d launch the kite we bought at Kitty Hawk Kites, another annual tradition.
My daughter and I sat for hours right at the water’s edge. Her fiancé and my wife came and went. Only she and I can commit to six hours barely moving. It is literally our happiest place.
Some days we played Fly Ball in the sand (think outdoor Skee-ball). I was terrible at it, but I could not have cared less.
In the evenings we had all-you-can-eat crab legs and gobs of seafood at the buffets at Captain George’s and Jimmy’s Seafood Buffet. We ate crab cakes sandwiches at Sam and Omie’s. We ate ice cream at Fatboyz Ice Cream one night, ordered pizza in from Slice another, and, the night we went to see the Lost Colony, we had sandwiches at Poor Richard’s on the pier.
We set a puzzle out on the dining room table that we worked on throughout the week. We ran out for hot dogs from Capt’n Franks one afternoon. We sat out on the deck and in the porch swing and marveled at the sunset despite having seen them countless times before.
There were sunburns and arguments and stomach aches. There was a long line or two at the restaurants. And mini-golf was too crowded the night we wanted to go. But all in all, it was a week none of us will long forget.
My favorite part was how simple it was and how much really concentrated time I got with my daughter. That’s not so common these days, now that she’s in her late 20s.
I love the beach, and I am grateful to get to visit it so often — sometimes on cruises, sometimes on a quick run to Galveston to stay in my favorite rental — the perfectly appointed and decorated Pier House, just a quick couple of blocks to the beach. Plenty of sun and seafood and ocean waves to be had there.
But nothing beats the Outer Banks of North Carolina for me. It feels different there — the sand, the air, the water, the people, the food.
All of it.
It feels like home.