nathalie and my thanksgiving traditions so far involve
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xploring the wider norfolk area. this thanksgiving involved trips north and south of norfolk. the first phase of our thanksgiving break was an overnight stay in kitty hawk, nc. kitty hawk being famous as the place where the wright brothers first flew their airplane 12 yards before it came back to earth. nathalie thought about that some, because supposedly in petropolis, brasil this dude with an airplane called
14-Bis is supposed to have flown first... we had a nice hotel room with a
n ocean front view... so nice to hear the waves crashing. it was kind of cold and i had a terrible, terrible headache, so we went to sleep early on thanksgiving and then got ready for the next day's adventure.
the next day we went out looking at light houses down the outer banks. the first light hose we saw was the bodie island light house just south of nag's head. it had white and black horizontal stripes. then, we continued on to see the famous cape hatteras light house. it's got black and white diagonal stripes. then, after we saw that, we drove back up to norfolk. the light houses
were pretty cool. there were a couple more, but dark sets in pretty quick, and the light houses were all like 50 or 60 miles apart.
the second big thing we went to see was the mariner's museum in newport news. this was a pretty nifty museum. the first thing to see there is as you walk in. it's a giant gilt eagle off of uss lancaster. i didnt even know there was a uss lancaster when i went there, so, it was pretty cool to find out and see the figurehead of it.
the major display at the museum these days are artifacts from uss monitor including the turret and the guns that were
in the turret when it foundered in a gale off the outer banks. there are several exhibits on discovering/raising the monitor from the graveyard of ships that is the carolina coast. the newport news
shipbuilding industry even donated a life size replica of uss monitor to the museum that is housed outside.
since i had just moved back up from new orleans, i took particular interest in the gilt piece of wood off uss hartford which had been admiral farragut's flagship throughout the bulk of the war. farragut's ship
captured new orleans and mobile and took part in the campaign up the mississippi river to capture vicksburg. pretty nifty to have this in the museum... but, kind of sad thats all thats left. some of the other exhibits they had included an exhibit on that floating cliche the titanic inlcuding a lifeboat you could sit in, to get the experience of being in an open
boat in a dark room...
and an exhibit on the life of admiral nelson. it was a decent exhibit, i just feel like i saw it during trafalgar celebrations in portsmouth.
but, it was a good weekend and we had lots of fun on our seveal small scale adventures... no maps, no highly detailed plan, no problems.
e
xploring the wider norfolk area. this thanksgiving involved trips north and south of norfolk. the first phase of our thanksgiving break was an overnight stay in kitty hawk, nc. kitty hawk being famous as the place where the wright brothers first flew their airplane 12 yards before it came back to earth. nathalie thought about that some, because supposedly in petropolis, brasil this dude with an airplane called 
14-Bis is supposed to have flown first... we had a nice hotel room with a
n ocean front view... so nice to hear the waves crashing. it was kind of cold and i had a terrible, terrible headache, so we went to sleep early on thanksgiving and then got ready for the next day's adventure.
the next day we went out looking at light houses down the outer banks. the first light hose we saw was the bodie island light house just south of nag's head. it had white and black horizontal stripes. then, we continued on to see the famous cape hatteras light house. it's got black and white diagonal stripes. then, after we saw that, we drove back up to norfolk. the light houses
were pretty cool. there were a couple more, but dark sets in pretty quick, and the light houses were all like 50 or 60 miles apart.
the second big thing we went to see was the mariner's museum in newport news. this was a pretty nifty museum. the first thing to see there is as you walk in. it's a giant gilt eagle off of uss lancaster. i didnt even know there was a uss lancaster when i went there, so, it was pretty cool to find out and see the figurehead of it.
the major display at the museum these days are artifacts from uss monitor including the turret and the guns that were 
in the turret when it foundered in a gale off the outer banks. there are several exhibits on discovering/raising the monitor from the graveyard of ships that is the carolina coast. the newport news
shipbuilding industry even donated a life size replica of uss monitor to the museum that is housed outside.
since i had just moved back up from new orleans, i took particular interest in the gilt piece of wood off uss hartford which had been admiral farragut's flagship throughout the bulk of the war. farragut's ship 
captured new orleans and mobile and took part in the campaign up the mississippi river to capture vicksburg. pretty nifty to have this in the museum... but, kind of sad thats all thats left. some of the other exhibits they had included an exhibit on that floating cliche the titanic inlcuding a lifeboat you could sit in, to get the experience of being in an open 
boat in a dark room...
and an exhibit on the life of admiral nelson. it was a decent exhibit, i just feel like i saw it during trafalgar celebrations in portsmouth.
but, it was a good weekend and we had lots of fun on our seveal small scale adventures... no maps, no highly detailed plan, no problems.
