Tag: North Carolina

  • Carolina Wetlands, Part 3 (The Great Outdoors)

    I bypassed all sorts of interesting and historical places because I wanted to avoid indoor spaces during the pandemic. So I searched for outdoor attractions to keep us busy. Typically we do a lot of this on our trips anyway, but we really took it over the top this time. A whole lot of walking,…

  • Carolina Wetlands, Part 2 (All About the Water)

    Water, water everywhere! Well what else would anyone expect? After all, the whole area was basically a swamp. They even called one big chunk of South Carolina the Lowcountry for its very specific lack of elevation and percolating water table. Liquid gurgled, flowed, pooled or crashed just about everywhere I stepped during the week. So…

  • Carolina Wetlands, Part 1 (Padding the Count)

    Hopefully this will be the last set of articles where I ever have to mention the COVID-19 pandemic. Maybe this will all seem quaint five or ten years from now when someone stumbles across this page. For now though it continues to shape how I travel and where I go. Even so, life goes on…

  • Wintertime in Corolla, Part 2 (Not Water)

    Sure, I enjoyed the sand and the waves during our brief hideaway on North Carolina’s Outer Banks (map). However I couldn’t spend the entire time just staring out the window or walking along the beach. We did some other things too. Everything seemed so weird though, partially because of the pandemic and partially because we…

  • Wintertime in Corolla, Part 1 (Water)

    My travel took a beating in 2020. Little did I know. Little did any of us know. True, I did manage a proper vacation to Bermuda just before the pandemic struck. Then we hid for brief periods away from everyone else at lakes in Pennsylvania and in Michigan. That helped. Hopefully someone reading this page…

  • Counties in North Carolina that I have Visited

    There are 100 Counties in North Carolina – “The Tar Heel State“ Also be sure to see my United States County Counting Page for the rest of the states. I have visited 90 Counties = 90.0% of Counties in North Carolina Counties visited are colored-in; counties still needing to be visited are blank.  Map created…

  • Inner Banks, Day 2

    We spent the first day getting down to our base at Elizabeth City, North Carolina.  That set us up well for Day Two.  Now we could focus squarely on capturing some unvisited counties.  I decided to travel counter-clockwise (or anti-clockwise for the international 12MC audience).  This map shows the actual coordinates I used to guide…

  • Inner Banks, Day 1

    I set my sights on a doughnut hole of unvisited counties in northeastern North Carolina.  I’d left them untouched until now.  No interstate highways passed through them.  The didn’t fall on a direct path coming home from the beach.  They simply sat there as empty white space on my County Counting map.  Seven of them,…

  • Ocracoke Light Station

    Ocracoke Island, North Carolina (March 2012) The primary reason we went through the trouble of riding the ferry to Ocracoke Island from Hatteras was to see the old lighthouse (map). Construction of this version occurred in 1823 although lighthouses watched over Ocracoke Inlet since 1795. The need had long been established.  English explorers first wrecked…

  • Currituck Beach Lighthouse

    Corolla, North Carolina (March 2012) Our trip to Currituck Beach Light provided a nice opportunity for a drive-by sighting. Unfortunately that’s the best we could do during the winter. It’s open and free to the public between Easter and Thanksgiving (with a small fee to climb the lighthouse tower). However it’s closed during the winter,…