One more day in the Outer Banks

In four jam-packed days, we trekked through Kitty Hawk & Kill Devil Hills, Duck & Corolla, Hatteras, and Roanoke Island. Basically, we saw all the sites we wanted to see. Friday, the last full day of our house rental, we decided to take things slow. Mac saw one or two restaurants that he wanted to check out, and I wanted a little more beach time.

After sleeping in for once, we headed out to the beach. I managed to capture this shot of the gusty wind conditions and choppy water (beaches had a no swim advisory) before my camera died. RIP Kodak. Unfortunately, I didn’t thoroughly apply sunscreen and got a wee bit sunburned. I’m still peeling. The beach was also very cold because the wind was so high, but we endured for two hours.

Back to the house to get ready for the day. We went north on the highway a mile or so to Chilli Peppers, a cleverly named southwestern joint. For an appetizer, we split frazzled onions (fried onion straws). I then tried the chicken quesadilla while Mac indulged in the daily special: a fried chicken sandwich with bacon. He also ordered a side of jalapeno potato salad. We splurged a bit and split a chocolate eclair cake for dessert. All our food was fantastic, and we had good service. It was also reasonably priced.

We had passed a store called The Christmas Mouse in Nags Head several times, so we drove down to explore it. It’s just a huge Christmas store: they sell tons of ornaments, home decor, all that jazz. Even though we’ve been together for three-plus years, we have spent one Christmas together. Mac deployed the first week of December, 2010, so I wasn’t in a very Christmas-y spirit. I bought a small, pre-lit tree and a few ornaments on clearance a few days before Christmas. Last year, he came home the second week of Christmas. Our plans took us all over Pennsylvania, so we didn’t really decorate our house. We decided to invest in a larger supply of nicer ornaments, and they had a fantastic selection of Virginia Tech Christmas decor.

Including elf hats

We headed back to Lost Adventure Golf, so Mac could golf on a pirate ship. While we were assigned to the same (no pirate ship) course as our first visit, we made an executive decision to switch courses. The family ahead of us was also on the wrong course (but they just seemed clueless). Small rant: I HATE children on mini golf courses. They’re obnoxious, in the way, and don’t understand the rules. I also hate their parents who think it’s okay to let them play incorrectly and further delay the players behind them. We, at multiple times, were third or fourth in line for a hole behind families. We also had a pack of kids behind us who tried to start the hole we were still playing.

But we did get this gem.

We used another Restaurant.com certificate for our last dinner in the Outer Banks at Kelly’s. Mac ordered a specialty drink just to get a super sweet glass.

Kelly’s had light and fluffy sweet potato biscuits and yeast rolls. I wasn’t terribly hungry, but I ate my fill of these. For dinner, Mac tried chicken and linguine with a pancetta bacon-red pepper cream sauce, while I sampled the bronzed chicken with linguine in a sweet onion creme fraise (but without shrimp). We were sufficiently stuffed and took our leftovers to go. Even though we were full, we stopped at Duck Donuts for one last treat. I had lemon icing with sprinkles, and Mac had another vanilla icing with sprinkles. We walked over to Awful Arthur’s to grab a trinket, then we finished these off with our last bottle of Moscato (so we got some exercise, haha).