Day 19 - No flying out of Kitty Hawk for me

having had a bad electric car day I had to interrupt my journey home in a really cool place.  Damn!  The was so much I wanted to do at the Outer Banks that i decided the beast way to begin was to work on Hobson's depleted batteries first.  The nearest charger was at a Tanger outlet mall fourteen miles away.   I charged the battery at 21mph so if we do the math it took almost an hour and a half to get back just what I used to get there.  But there was close to the beach, just like everywhere in the Outer Banks is so i took a nice walk down the beach.  I actually had my bike and helmet in the car but once i stepped out into the brisk breeze I decided walking on the beach would be saner.

It was below 60 degrees so there were many more bird tracks in the sand than people ones and plenty of those birds were still around.  i cannot identify many but i did see a group of albatross and a type of gull I had never seen before along with plenty of flying animals that I could not properly put any sort of label on.  I did try the water and it was June/July new England temperature so if the air temperature had been higher it would have been decent to swim.

I did eventually get bored.and hungry so trudged back to the car which had gained enough for me to at least limp towards Norfolk and the Tesla chargers there.  I figured to plug into Gretchen's outdoor plug on the house overnight to add a little insurance.  As i had running shorts with no pockets and it had still not gotten very arm I went back to the house to change into jeans and figure out what to do next.

Of all the places on the highway going back Frank's Dog House looked like the right place for lunch and the Wright Brothers National Memorial the right place to spend the afternoon as the wind had not diminished enough to make for a happy bicycle ride.  I got my hot dog and root beer at Frank's which was very busy, so much so that there were no tables inside.  My thickened Northern blood though was not bothered by sitting outside while I ate.

Then it was off to the Wright Brothers.  The first sign in the place makes clear that the Wright Brothers came there for the wind so they could test gliders before trying the powered flight.  the place is under construction so there were no flying machines to be seen but they had a field which marked where the flights started and ended.  Doing the math they did not go far nor did they fly faster than someone could run but not even a generation later we had the Red Baron doing acrobatics and shooting Snoopy down daily.  If you do go you should get a ranger guided tour.but the next one was too late in the afternoon for me to stick around for.

Monument to the Wright Brothers atop the hil they used to launch the gliders.  They did the powered flight from level ground below.

I then returned and met Gretchen for the promised good seafood dinner that one must get if you go to the outer banks.  It was a good dinner and for the first time in awhile I actually left some of the desert on the plate because I was full to the brim.  This is a rare event in my life so even being uncomfortably full I savored the moment as a rarity.  We then went to catch the sunset over the bay which was great.

Two views of the sunset.  The top one was taken with the cameras sunset mode and the other taken with the normal exposure mode.  The camera made for a dramatic but as you can see, completely unrealistic photo

Charging:
Tanger Outlets, Nags Head, NC - ChargePoint - This is a nice service that it seems all Tanger Outlet Malls have.  The place had a rest room and a deck overlooking the water where I read of a while.  It was a slow charge but a welcoming place to spend the time.  I was hooked up for 5 hours.

Gretchen's House - I plugged in for the night.  Pulgging into a 110 plug does not get you much but over a few hours it does provide a cushion.  The rate was 4 miles of charge per hour and the car never wavered from telling me that the charge time was 24+ hours but I it did ease my mind about making it to the next stop.  I just hope Gretchen does not hate me when she gets her electric bill.