Wintry Hodgepodge

Joyce has winterized today's Hodgepodge! Click here to write along with us!

1. What keeps you blogging?

Ha! This is a good one because I haven't been doing a great job of blogging over the past couple of years. Meeting a fellow blogger over Christmas break helped rekindle blogging for me.

2. Some people like to travel in the winter months. Do you enjoy the beach in winter? According to Southern Living the best U.S. beach towns to visit this winter are-

St Simons Island (Georgia), Hilton Head (South Carolina), Bald Head Island (North Carolina), Seaside (Florida), Bay St. Louis (Mississippi), Cape San Blas (Florida), South Padre Island (Texas), Folly Beach (South Carolina), Chincoteague (Virginia), Duck Key (Florida), Nags Head (North Carolina), and Fairhope (Alabama)

Have you been to any of the towns listed (in any season)? Which on the list appeals to you most this winter? 

I've been to Hilton Head (favorite family vacation spot when we lived in SC), Folly Beach, and Nags Head. But I don't think I've been to HHI in the winter. Weird.
I love the beach in the winter. In fact, I just wrote a post about our Winter vacation in Panama City Beach, Fl. (I just realized the title should have been 2017, but...oh well!) Hilton Head can get rather chilly in the winter, and I would imagine Bald Head Island, Nags Head, Folly Beach, and Chincoteague would as well. My recommendation would be to go south...St. Simons might be a little "iffy", so go farther south than that! 

The beach can be chilly in the winter, but the upside is that you'll have the beach to yourself!

3. What's a song you're embarrassed to know all the lyrics to? Are you really embarrassed or do just think you should be?

I know the lyrics to an awful lot of songs...and I'm not embarrassed to know any of them. I've been known to have the Oklahoma soundtrack blaring from my car, windows rolled down, and the boys begging me to stop!

4. When you were a kid what's something you thought would be fantastic as an adult, but now that you're an adult you realize it's not all that fantastic?

Eating what I want, when I want. Unfortunately, I inherited some bad genes from my mom, so I have to watch what I eat.

5. Share a quote you hope will inspire you in 2018.

No quotes, but on New Year's Day, I did the Saint's Name Generator for my Saint of the Year. I randomly received Blessed Titus Brandsma, who isn't a saint yet. He was a Dutch priest who spoke out against the Nazis in WWII and was captured & was a prisoner in several different camps. He ended up in Dachau, where he was tortured, and when he could no longer work because of illness, they used him for "experiments". He was given a lethal injection.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

I finally got started on my Ireland posts! The first installment is tomorrow, so come back and join me!

OBX Adventure

I can sum up our vacation in 1 word, but I think I'll let Robin do it for me:

Some nights we got some relief...as long as the wind was blowing. We also had some mosquitoes to deal with, but they actually weren't too bad. Thank goodness for air conditioning in our little trailer!
We were very pleased with our campground. When we got to the site we reserved, we realized how small it was. Our trailer would have fit, but we wouldn't have been able to put up our canopy. The office staff was so accommodating; they gave us a list of sites to look at so we could switch. We ended up with a large site. It didn't have the view that our original site had, but it had some shade. Plus, we had a large RV blocking the late afternoon sun.

(Reminder: You can click on the pictures to see them better!)

The view behind our site:

We didn't have anybody in the next 2 to the other side of us, so we had plenty of room.
The OBX is so different than Florida. Once you get south of Nags Head, the only chain businesses you'll see is Dairy Queen & a Food Lion. It definitely adds to the charm. Then, of course, there was this:

We went on a bird watching walk given by the Park Service. We saw several animals during the walk:

Of course we saw these beautiful structures:

Hatteras

Ocracoke

Bodie Island

We didn't climb to the top of Hatteras or Bodie Island. It was just too hot.  Ocracoke's stairs aren't open, and the base is only open during certain times. We just happened to hit it when it was open. The history of the lighthouses was fascinating. What a job the lighthouse keepers had!

We saw cool things on the beach:

Horseshoe crab

 An honest-to-goodness shipwreck

 Turtle nesting areas

 Horses

The man with the vehicle was a biologist with the Park Service. He had just moved about 150 turtle eggs back  off the beach so they wouldn't be in the way.

CH got to drive his truck on the beach (I'm pretty sure this is the #1 reason we went to the OBX in July):

We spent a day out on the beach:

(I bought the little tent at Dicks & it worked great!)

We went to Kitty Hawk but didn't walk up the hill to the memorial. (Waaay too hot for that!)

On the way back from Kitty Hawk, we stopped in Manteo to see Fort Raleigh (the site of "The Lost Colony")

Following the volunteer's recommendation, we went to Elizabethan Gardens. It looked very nice, but we didn't go in since it cost $9/person, and we're not that much into flowers and plants.

In the campground and just outside of it, we saw some very interesting things:

According to a friend, the "spaceship" is called a Futuro House. It was designed by a Finnish architect to use as a ski chalet.

We even managed to see a few pretty sunsets:

Some of you may recognize this house from Nights in Rodanthe:

If you remember the movie, the house was right at the edge of the ocean. Well, it had to be moved or else it was going to be the ocean. It was in disrepair and just about to be condemned when the current owners saved it. They moved it to its present location (snugged in between some houses), put the blue shutters back on, built the balconies, and even redecorated the inside to look like the movie.  You can stay here for right around $2500/week. (See the details here) I had a hard time finding it, especially when we were coming from the north; it's easier to find coming from the south.

CH originally wanted to stay at one of the National Park Campgrounds, except there's no electricity or water. I mentioned it was hot, right? The Frisco Campground looked the best out of the ones we saw. We rode around the campground & took a look around. The views from the top were spectacular:

I definitely would stay there in cooler weather. They're only open from May-October; July is not the time to stay!

Overall, a decent vacation. The OBX is very family friendly. In fact, almost everything closes at 9:00, but since there are a lot of fisherman in the area who get up at the crack of dawn to fish, it's probably late to them! While there are some little markets spattered around the islands, there are only a couple (Conner's and Food Lion) that will have everything you need. I asked a waitress where she does her grocery shopping, and she told me the 2 that I just mentioned. Which means she has a drive to get there. 

This was a relatively inexpensive vacation for us. Our biggest expense was the campsite & gas. The only attraction that we went to where we had to pay was Kitty Hawk, and it was only $4/person. The  Fort Raleigh Visitor Center has a film you can watch that summarizes the Lost Colony. There is also a show there, but we didn't stay for it. We thought the restaurant food was very reasonable, especially for being at the beach. Gas wasn't even too high; it was around $2.90/gallon. 

I would definitely recommend a trip to the Outer Banks...just not in the dead of summer!