another name for OBX

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Maybe we should come up with another name for OBX
For What It is Worth by Rick Stewart 21.AUG.07

Could you, in your wildest dreams, image that you could walk into a restaurant in Eastern North Carolina, order a glass of sweet ice tea and get a bottle of tea out of a refrigerator?

Could you, in your wildest dreams, imagine walking into a restaurant in Eastern N.C. and noticing that everyone seated around you sounded differently than you do?



And, could you imagine going into the parking lot of the same restaurant, and finding that your car was the only car in the parking lot that had North Carolina license plates?

I know. It’s hard to believe. All of this in Eastern North Carolina. But, it’s true. It happened to Karen and me this weekend.

Saturday was our 34th wedding anniversary. We decided to head to the Outer Banks since it had been a few years since we were there. I regret to tell you that much of the Outer Banks in North Carolina has been taken over by folks from other states.

I absolutely have nothing against folks from the North--I married one. Karen is from Maine.

But, they don’t drink sweet tea. What’s more, some of their other favorites don’t include grits, okra and the other things we eat around these parts.
We were in Duck, north of Kitty Hawk, about lunch time on Saturday. We found a nice little cafe and decided to eat.

Actually, it was Karen who ordered the sweet iced tea. (She’s one of us, now.) Since I was sitting across the table from her, I immediately noticed the shocked look on her face when the waiter brought her a bottle of tea and a glass of ice.

Of course, it didn’t taste like the tea we drink around here, either.
As we waited for our order, it became obvious to us that we were surrounded by folks who were not from Eastern North Carolina. Their accents just didn’t fit.

When we departed, I did a check of the cars in the parking lot. There might have been one other car from North Carolina in the parking lot. The other cars were from the Northeast, Midwest and West.

Actually, we really felt out of place as residents of Eastern North Carolina.
And, the traffic. It was awful. We had to get in line to get to Duck way back in Kitty Hawk. It probably took us a good 30 minutes to go the few miles. It was bumper-to-bumper.

We spent the better part of the day just riding around and looking. We walked on the beach but it was difficult to get to the beach in the Nags Head area.
While there were numerous public beach access points, there were few places to park a car.

As we headed south toward Hatteras, we found numerous public parking areas in the National Park section. But, where there are those multi-million dollar cottages, it’s tough to get on the beach.

We eventually found ourselves in Hatteras, and we immediately noticed that many of the motels were sporting “no vacancy” signs.

Although we weren’t really worried about where we’d stay, we began to look for a place.

We ended up at a place next to where the ferry goes over to Ocracoke Island. We learned it once was a Holiday Inn Express but had been converted to condominiums.

Basically, it was two rooms--a bedroom and a kitchen-living room. It certainly was fine for a night’s lodging. In fact it was conveniently located next to a shopping area with several restaurants, which made getting supper easy.

Thirty-four years ago we ate pizza on our first night as a married couple. Saturday night we ate seafood. Although we did eat dessert at a pizza place and bakery.

By the way, our room in what had been a motel was for sale--just $249,000. That doesn’t sound too Eastern North Carolina, either.

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