Camping, OBX Style

Life has a way of weighing us down. The day to day stress, grief from loss of many types, the constant busyness of the American lifestyle, the non-stop attempts to buy you from pop-culture, media and social “influencers”, and politicians all create a sort of crud on the mind and soul. I’ve talked about this at times in the past, and sometimes it’s not enough to just balance creation with consumption. That’s where “vacation” or “holiday” comes in and we strike out for somewhere to gain a break from all of that. I’ve found the mountains and the beach to each be detoxifying filters that “clean me out, and then I can go on.”

I reserved a campsite at the National Park Service (NPS) run Frisco Campground in Frisco, NC. It’s easy to not know where this is, but I think a lot of people vaguely familiar with the North Carolina coast have heard of Cape Hatteras and it’s famous lighthouse. Both are worth a web search. Frisco, NC is roughly a 20 minute drive west of the cape and a 15 minute drive from the Hatteras to Ocracoke ferry terminal. There are three NPS campgrounds in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, one at Oregon Inlet, one at Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, and one at Frisco. I’ve stayed at all three campgrounds, and, in my opinion, the Frisco Campground is the best. The other two campgrounds are almost completely flat, with very little in the way of natural cover and shade.

Frisco Campground is a lovely scene like something from a Rupert Holmes song. It’s nestled deep in the sand dunes of the cape with nice campsites, many of which have a lot of natural cover from loblolly pine trees and hardwoods that have bent and twisted and stayed short below the height of the dunes from decades of wind and storms. There are cold showers and nice tiled restrooms with flushing toilets and sinks and spigots and filtered water bottle spigots throughout the campground, but no electric or water hookups in any of the campsites. While we were there we saw tents and campers of all sizes, and even a couple of RVs, though those barely fit in back-in driveways of their campsites. There is an ORV (off road vehicle) ramp just before the entrance to the campground, and then the campground has two boardwalks that take you to the main line of dunes that separate the ocean from the rest of the island. Our campsite was on the ocean side of the campground right next to one of these boardwalks. Some campsites have the spot for the tent right next to its parking spot and picnic table and grill. For ours the spot for the tent lay about 50 feet further back from the parking spot and in the little clearing amidst the trees and shrubs. This was perfect, we had privacy from people walking down the boardwalk to the beach, shelter from the sun on the tent, and what would become even more important later in the week-shelter from the wind.

We got to the campground around 4AM Tuesday July 6th. As we quietly parked and disembarked our land-yacht of a Suburban we immediately noticed that you could hear the ocean, you could hear a whippoorwill singing the sun up, and you could see the cloud of our Milky Way Galaxy clear as crystal. We admired the sight for over an hour, seeing meteors and satellites, and at last we decided to start unpacking and setting up. With head lamps and lanterns and flood lights we got the tent set up on it’s huge footprint with a large ground mat in front of the door. We finished that up as the sun was rising and we decided to go get some sunrise pictures and comb the beach before going to bed.

The sunrise was glorious, but we were exhausted from driving overnight. After getting our fill of pictures and seashells we made our way back to the tent and slept through most of the morning. I woke before the others to the humid heat and decided to set up a shade and insect shelter we had bought the previous week, and it was worth every penny. I woke the others so we could enjoy the day and so they wouldn’t get too hot sleeping in the tent. We had a nice lunch and decided that we would head to the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse for a presentation by an NPS ranger. The presentation was about the role of the lighthouse keepers over the decades and how they and the lighthouse influenced the culture and safety of the area. After the presentation we toured the grounds and the lighthouse keepers houses. The lighthouse itself was being renovated so we weren't able to climb it this trip.

We headed back to camp for a nice dinner of tacos before heading to the beach for some evening swimming and fun in the sand. We sent up a new whale of a kite and the kids worked on a sand castle until after the sun went down and exhaustion began to catch up with us again. We showered, which was quite cold, but we found out as the week progressed that this was not the worst thing in the world. It's worth noting that the showers here are not lit. So if you're showering after dark be prepared to bring a light source of sorts.

The next day we woke up late, but rested, and determined to fully enjoy the beach before going to a stage play on Roanoke Island called "The Lost Colony." We spent roughly three hours on the beach. We all layered on the sunscreen, and let me tell you, it did not work. We were all deeply burnt except Lily-who had had the fortune of wearing a long sleeve bathing suit. I had chills that night, we all had minor blisters - again except Lily. That afternoon we showered and made dinner before heading to the stage play. The cold showers were a welcome relief to our burning skin and hamburgers, hotdogs, and corn on the grill hit the spot in our stomachs. We also cooked asparagus, but it didn't turn out quite right for some reason.

With stomachs full we headed to the stage play. I won't go into the story behind the play at this time, but if you've never heard of the lost colony of Roanoke, it's worth a web search. The play was excellent. It has singing, dancing, performance, drama, a sword fight, romance, mystery, and action. The players are all talented and seem to genuinely enjoy their roles. The dancing through the overture was easily one of my daughters' favorite things from the entire beach trip. The set is well kept, and the setting on the Albemarle sound is perfect. 10/10 would recommend. They do sell snacks and beverages, and have some pretty good drink options, but you're going to pay dearly for it. It is recommended to apply bug repellent for the mosquitoes that come in from the forest and the sound. Our bug bands seemed to do the job, we didn't have any issues, though I'm not sure if we would have felt it through the sunburns. Despite fever like chills of sunburns and the late evening, we thoroughly enjoyed the play. We headed home, put the rain fly on the tent and ran extra stakes into the tents and tarps in preparation for Tropical Storm Elsa.

Thursday arrived in an anti-climactic form. It was breezy in the morning, but nothing too extreme. We were slow moving as we were all kind of miserable from the sunburns. As we wrapped up breakfast the first bands of rain hit so we decided to go get ice and walk around a local outfitter for a bit. After dropping off the ice we headed to Kinnakeet, NC where the nearest big grocery store was for a few supplies. After that we hung out in the campsite, the wind turned up, and so did some attitudes of the smaller humans, so William and I went for a walk around the perimeter of the campground.

At the backside of the campground we found a familiar sign that had been faded and worn by sun and wind. The North Carolina Mountain-to-Sea Trail (MST) runs from the lighthouse to the campground, and then from the campground to the ferry terminal to cross to Ocracoke. I'm hoping to hike the MST in small sections over a couple of years, time will tell if that will happen though. The trail runs from Clingman's Dome in the mountains to Jockey's Ridge on the Outer Banks. As William and I hiked around the campground which rises up on some of the tallest dunes in the area we could see that the storm was intensifying, and the ocean reflected this. He and I walked down to the beach to see the storm surge up close. It was like something from a novel. The angry sea, covered in foam and white caps attacked the shore relentlessly. I was reminded by a few verses in the Bible, namely Proverbs 8:29 in which the writer, speaking as though on behalf of wisdom, as though wisdom were a person, speaks of the borders of the many waters of the Earth:

'When He set a boundary for the sea So that the water would not violate His command, When He marked out the foundations of the earth; '

Proverbs 8:29

https://my.bible.com/bible/2692/PRO.8.29

Many storms have battered the Outer Banks, and the sands have shifted with currents and time (a large part of the reason for the lighthouses and the many shipwrecks just off the coast). In recent years maintaining the shoreline has become a matter of stewardship, a mantle laid on the shoulders of Adam by God, but neglected by humanity for much of the previous two centuries (and still neglected by a few other nations, but we will save that for another day). “Beach nourishment” is the process of dredging sand from off the coast to rebuild beaches and sand dunes, which help protect the mainland and the intercoastal waterways. The NPS and conservation groups and beach towns have also taken to adding plants and grasses such as sea oats and prickly pear cactus across the dunes to help prevent and slow erosion. As Elsa peaked in her “baby hurricane” (as our kids liked to call it) force, it was easy to see why the dunes were so vital. This storm, not even being a very intense storm in the way of storms coming from the tropics, was shoving the waves well above and beyond the high-tide lines on the beach. Sand and salt whipped through the air and battered everything and everyone on the ocean side of the dunes. It was an awesome and terrible scene. We walked along the beach for a bit before seeing the exit for the boardwalk that would go right by our campsite.

Getting back to our campsite William and I found the girls absent from the picnic table and the wind trying to rip the picnic shelter from the Earth. Initially we tried to stake it back down, but soon saw that as a futile effort and decided to break it down and clean up our eating area more, putting away anything that shouldn’t get wet or that could be lifted away. In the tent the girls were playing a card game called “Happy Salmon” that they thoroughly enjoy, and in the cove amongst the trees with the rain fly on you wouldn’t have known that such a gale was ripping through the area. You could hear it though for sure. The sound was terrific, but our tent held solid. William and I joined in the card game for a little bit before going to shower-we were pretty nasty after walking on the windy beach.

Once we were cleaned up we admired a bit of sunset peaking through the clouds which were beginning to pass, though the same could not be said for the wind. We headed out for dinner, hoping to eat at Diamond Shoals restaurant in Buxton, NC, but realized on the way there that they close at 9PM during the week, and it was about 8:45. A quick search we found that “Tavern on 12” was open until 10PM. It was adequate. The food was good, but a little overpriced in my opinion. It definitely capitalizes on being a touristy area that lives on seafood. They didn’t have a catch of the day, though their tuna tacos and their fried shrimp were scrumptious. Lily, our youngest, is quite gluten intolerant (tummy ache, hives, it’s not a good time) and the most sure gluten free thing they had on their menu was the chef-choice steak. So little Lily had the most expensive dish of the night, and the steak was huge, she mostly ate the sides, and filled up quickly. I sampled the steak, it was very good, in hindsight I would have ordered it for myself and given Lily a third of the steak and the sides, but I obviously didn’t think of that-let’s blame the sunburn. The waitress was good, attentive enough, kept drinks full, and the atmosphere was pleasant and relaxed. Would it be my first choice of restaurants to patronize on another visit? No, but I would say that if you’re in the Frisco area, don’t want to drive to Buxton or Hatteras, or want a place a little more relaxed later in the evening than a lot of the restaurants, not to be afraid to try it, it won’t disappoint.

The next day we woke up with intent. The previous day felt almost wasted; even though it wasn’t, it had been a slower, more resting kind of day. Tropical Storm Elsa was cleared out, the wind was substantially less, and the sun was back out in full force. We had a quick breakfast, restocked ice (we went through a lot of ice), and headed north. The main 2 goals of the day were getting Junior Ranger books stamped at the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, and going to the aquarium. The Junior Ranger program is a neat way to get children to engage in learning about National Park places (there’s a unique one for every Park, Monument, Memorial, and Seashore). They go through an activity booklet and complete activities appropriate to their age, and get sworn in as Junior Rangers and get a badge that is unique to the location. Best of all… it’s free! All three enjoyed doing their booklets, and Lily is still wearing her badge a week later. We headed up to the North Carolina Aquarium in Manteo. It’s an awesome aquarium with very reasonable admission, and if you live in North Carolina you can get a year pass that conveys to other NC aquariums (there are 3 in total) and the North Carolina zoo in Asheboro, NC (the world’s largest natural habitat zoo). An annual pass to the zoo conveys to the NC aquariums, and offers free or discounted admission to a huge list of zoos around North America. The aquarium has it all, they have a sea turtle rehab facility you can walk through the corner of, they have a touch tank where you can pet stingrays, they have sharks, alligators, North Carolina native fish, jellyfish, and much more. You will need at least two hours to take it in, but with the indoor aquariums and the pier that overlooks the Croatan Sound and many more activities we haven’t had a chance to experience ourselves, you could easily spend the whole day there. They close at five, we were there for almost four hours, and it wasn’t nearly enough.

On the way back to the campground (a drive over an hour) we stopped at Bodie (pronounced “body”) Lighthouse and grabbed a few more pictures, but being late in the day the NPS was shutting down lighthouse climbing, another trip hopefully. We then stopped at the Diamond Shoals restaurant. There was a wait, it was worth it, it wasn’t cheap, but I wasn’t expecting it to be. They had sushi, and a fresh catch menu, and both delivered. The only two problems we had was the waitress seemed to be stretched thin across a couple larger parties and our table, and so we felt neglected more than once. It took a little bit to get drinks out, they were never refilled, and it took a bit to get hushpuppies out to us. I’m done complaining, the food is only to be praised! The hushpuppies were excellent! We tried the clam chowder and it was a delicious cream style. I had a broiled red snapper off the fresh catch menu, and it was perfect, I mean, juice, flavorful, just amazing. I shared the fish around the table, and everyone thought it was very good. We got several rolls of sushi and sashimi, and it was all amazing. The cook staff cannot be praised enough, it was worth the wait, and the price.

It was late when we got back, the Milky Way Galaxy was visible in the sky again. The wise thing to do would have been to snap a few pictures, shower and go to bed, but we were so captured by the beauty and majesty of a clear sky that opened the windows to the heavens that we were up past midnight, and when I went to bed without a shower, I slept terribly.

I woke up late the next day, we ate another quick breakfast and did one more walk along the beach. Got back to the campground, began to break down the camp. By this point the sunburns were under our skin-both emotionally and physically. We didn’t want to leave, and the heat made us not want to pack. We were supposed to be out by noon, and were reminded frequently by a park ranger, who was only doing her job. I got frustrated with the whole situation and broke down, thankfully not towards the park ranger, but with some comfort from Angel was able to get things packed up. It was closer to 1:30PM when we drove out of the camp, and to the showerhouse, where we grabbed a quick shower to wash off the ocean before being in the Suburban all day.

Finally leaving the campground we wanted to make one last stop on the way out. The Wright Brothers Memorial was having a giant kite festival (both in quantity and size of kites. We got there in the last half hour. It was spectacular, what little we made it for. Some of the kites were huge! They dwarfed my decent sized whale kite-which I didn’t bother to get out, but just enjoyed was already flying. We walked the memorial and visitor center-new since a short trip we made there in 2016. They’ve really done a good job with the whole place, and it’s definitely worth the visit. We finally left around 5:15, and were on the mainland around 6, making it home around 11PM.

It was a heck of a trip. We learned that we could actually have an overall pleasant camping trip on the beach. We found that things we had put in place to keep sand out of the tent worked pretty well. We discovered that there’s a lot to the Outer Banks than just the beach and fishing. We felt a cleansing for our souls, learned of a deep and rich history of the barrier islands that protect North Carolina from the onslaught of the great storms of the Atlantic. Best of all we drew closer as a family that embraces the storms, the adventures, tries new things, and hopes to conserve what good can be found in the world.