When Brooke said she wanted to take Cheyenne to the Outer Banks while they were here in Virginia, I suggested we leave really early in the morning, make a day of it and ride the ferry to Ocracoke (what was I thinking?). Brooke grew up going to the OBX (Outer Banks) every year and she wanted to share that part of her history with Cheyenne. So that’s how the idea was born. We left the house around 8am and made pretty good time. As we passed the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, we decided to stop and take it to the top. There’s quite a story behind this lighthouse – it was actually moved 2,900 ft inland in 1999. Our tickets to climb the lighthouse were for 12:10 so we walked out to the museum and looked around, reading the fascinating history of this landmark.
Climbing 257 stairs on a hot, humid day inside a lighthouse with very little air moving was indeed challenging. But we made it and the views were worth every step! (Plus it was really windy and that felt wonderful!!) We could even see the original spot where the lighthouse used to be. It was very cool.
Back on the road again, we were hoping to make the 1:00 ferry. Hahahahaha. Yeah, that didn’t happen. But we were there in line around 1:15. The next ferry left around 1:40. It takes about an hour to get to Ocracoke. Weeeeelllll, the 1:40 ferry came and went. Then we started paying attention to all the different lines and which one we were in, etc. Long story short, we didn’t get on A ferry until about 3:00. It was a long, hot wait. We made sandwiches and sat there with the car and a/c running and ate. And waited. And waited.
The ferry ride was exciting for Cheyenne since she’d never done anything like that before! And the water that day was a beautiful shade of green I’ve never seen around here before. Cheyenne even saw some dolphins playing in the distance. That was pretty cool too.
Finally we made it to the island. Then we got to drive yet some more before finding a public beach with facilities. It was totally worth it when we did. About 4pm we stepped onto the beautiful powdery sand of a mostly empty beach by Virginia Beach standards. There were people there but not like it is around here. The water was wonderful! It was the perfect temperature and there were enough waves to play in. Cheyenne (all of us really) was like a little kid – she was in heaven.
After playing in the water a couple of times and drying off a bit, we took a walk and picked up some unusual shells before packing up and leaving. It was nearly 8pm by the time we headed back to the car to change. At that point we knew we had to go into the village for dinner because there was no way we’d last until we got back to the mainland. I love the little village and was glad we were able to show Cheyenne the other side of the island. After a wee bit of souvenir shopping we decided to keep it simple and grabbed some sandwiches at SMacNally’s. It was getting dark and the breeze out on the deck was heaven. About 8:45 I texted Bob and asked if he could check and see if there were any rooms we could crash in the for night. He found us one at the Avon Motel. The receptionist was closing the office at 9:00 but said she’d leave the key in an envelope on the door for us. How about that? We knew it was gonna be a long night. The last ferry left the island at midnight so we knew we were good there.
With bellies full and souvenirs bought and closing the place down, we started the trek back home. Knowing we wouldn’t make the 9:30 ferry, we took our time with full confidence that we’d have no problem catching the 10:30. There wouldn’t be a line that late at night, right? Hahahaha. There was a line. Not knowing whether it was a small ferry or one of the larger ones coming, we were sweating it a bit – there were 23 cars ahead of us. We couldn’t imagine having to wait for the one at midnight. While waiting we walked out on the beach and had fun watching sand crabs by the flashlights on our phones. Some of those critters were huge! About the size of a regular crab! Thankfully, we made it on that ferry by the skin of our teeth. I think there were three more cars after us and that was it.
Back on dry land around 11:30pm we hit those long, dark roads. Cheyenne fell asleep and Brooke and I had this discussion about the room at this place. The simple fact that they had a vacant room was a little disturbing but we were trying to be optimistic. We decided to check the room out before waking up Cheyenne in case it was too sketchy for our tastes. Brooke even said at one point, “If God says ‘NO’ we’re listening!” And this is where the story gets really interesting.
About midnight, we rolled into the Avon Motel … It’s all dark. Really dark. Brooke pulled up in front of the office and I left the car door open while going to get the key. Sure enough, there was an envelope taped to the door with “Troupe, Room B” on it. So I looked around to see where Room B was. Right next to the office is a door with “A” on it. The door next to it had no letter or numbers and the door next to that had a “6” on it. Things that make ya go hmmmmmmm. So I walked around the other side of the office to see if Room B was there. Nope, there were rooms 1-5 but no “B.” I went back to the car and showed Brooke the key and envelope (the key also said “Room B” on it) and she confirmed what I thought I saw. I closed the door and she drove up and down the strip with us looking at every door. We couldn’t, for the life of us, find a Room B. In our Brooke/Wanda logic, we thought that maybe the door next the one with an “A” on it that was blank was Room B. Maybe the “B” fell off! (Think about that now … It was totally logical to us that the letter could’ve fallen off the door. That’s the kind of place this was.) But hey, we were pretty limited on options here! All this time Cheyenne was still sleeping. We decided that I would try the key on that blank door and see what happened. If it opened it, then we’d assume that was Room B. If it didn’t, well, then I guess we’re driving home! LOL
So I got out of the car and walked up to the unsuspecting door. I tried the key and, like magic, it worked!!!! So I pushed the door open, well I tried to push the door open. It opened about 12″ and stopped. It felt like it was stuck on something – like maybe it wasn’t squared up or there was a mat on the carpet impeding its forward progress. Seriously. You can’t make this stuff up. I looked up at the top of the door to see if I could tell what the problem was. When I didn’t see anything I looked down … I kid you not … I discovered what was in the door’s way – a bed. And on that bed I saw a white t-shirt turning over. Holy Mother of God! I’m not sure I’ve ever moved that fast in my entire life!! After quickly pulling the door shut, I ran out to the car – remember I had left the door open – hopped in, slammed the door all the while screaming to Brooke, “GO! GO! GO! GO!” (Needless to say, Cheyenne is awake at this point.) I tell Brooke to turn off the car lights and just GO!! BUT wait!!! I have to take the damn key back to the office door! Well crap. Cheyenne is awake, but not awake, and she’s whining that she doesn’t want to drive 3 hours to get home, that there’s got to be a reasonable explanation, etc. So she’s googling the motel, why I don’t know, but she was, saying they have a bunch of rooms. LOL Like we really care at this point. Breathing heavy and scared to death, I ran up to the office and tossed the envelope inside the screen door. During all this, we noticed the light came on in the room next to the door I had just opened. Interesting. Brooke spun tires out of that gravel parking lot. We couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Well hells bells is that enough excitement for you? As peeling out of that place, Brooke said, “Well God didn’t just say ‘No!’ He said, ‘HELL NO!'” We could just see God up there gathering the Angels around saying, “Y’all come over here and watch this!” As you can imagine, we were all wide awake at this point and accepted the fact that we were driving the hell home. We stopped at a 7-11 down the road and went to the restroom and got snacks. We came up with some good stories to go with our side of what happened. In our heads, we knew that door I opened (the blank door) was connected to the Room 6 door – they had turned into a suite – honeymoon suite, with a heart shaped bed. And we just ruined someone’s honeymoon. But hey if they were there for their honeymoon …. Well, enough said about that. We figured when that light came on they were panicking and packing their stuff up to get out of there too! We didn’t know if someone was going to come out with a shotgun or what!
Cheyenne eventually went back to sleep – may as well, we had a long drive ahead of us. On the positive side, there wasn’t much traffic! LOL We pulled in the driveway about 3am. We managed to be quite enough Bob didn’t wake up at all until I was in the bed winding down. He turned over, saw me and said, “What are you doing home?” I asked him if he wanted the story then or in the morning. He chose then. Not one we’ll soon forget. But wait! There’s more!!
I had to call the office in the morning and tell the clerk why we didn’t stay or our credit card would’ve been charged anyway. Now how does one tell this lady what happened and why we left without being a jerk. Especially me? Everyone knows there’s not much tact in this body. Anyway, I called and told her what happened. Said we got freaked out and left. So she proceeded to explain to me that the owner turned that into a suite – told ya – and that Room B was between rooms 10 and 11. ??? It wasn’t last night. We looked. Whatever. She never did address the fact that the key opened that door. Just said she wasn’t going to charge us for the room. Thank God for small favors.
What a day for the books! June 26, 2016
It's a Wonderful Life! 