The Beauty Around Us

Our Outer Banks 2013 Vacation: Getting There

By Linda G. on September 25, 2013

Our Outer Banks vacation got started at 12:15 pm on Friday, September 13.  Bob came home from work at noon.  Fifteen minutes later we were on our way to pick up Pam, who accompanied us to the Outer Banks this year.  Our friend, Denise, who coordinated the plans for our week stay in the Outer Banks, graduated high school with Pam.  Pam and Denise were best friends in high school.  They lost touch after high school and found each other recently on Facebook.  Bob and I had not met Pam until we picked her up for our drive to the Outer Banks.  I had been corresponding with Pam, though, on Facebook.

It was a good travel day.  Traffic wasn’t bad.  What traffic there was kept moving.   The steady conversation among Pam, Bob and I made the 6+-hour drive go by more quickly than otherwise.

We spent the night at the Best Western Fredericksburg in Fredericksburg, Virginia.  We arrived at the hotel around 7:15 PM.  Bob and I stayed at this hotel last year, on our way to the Outer Banks.  It is a very nice hotel, and we had no qualms about staying there again.  This year, however, we requested two rooms that were not in “pet alley”.  The Best Western Fredericksburg allows pets.  Last year we were accommodated in a room in “pet alley”.  Although we enjoyed a quiet night’s rest last year, we were awakened the next morning around 5:30 AM  by barking dog(s).

We checked into our rooms and ate dinner at Shoney’s Restaurant, which was located on the hotel grounds.  We returned to the hotel at 8:30 PM and spent the rest of the evening in our respective rooms.

Neither Bob nor I got much sleep from 2:15 AM and on.  Both of us experienced irritable bowels.  We thought perhaps it was something that we ate at Shoney’s that didn’t agree with us, although everything tasted good.  When we met Pam for breakfast, we learned that she experienced an irritable bowel during the night as well.  The common food all three of us ate was Tilapia, so we blame the fish for our distress.

We ate breakfast at the hotel.  As always, Best Western’s complimentary breakfasts are good and filling.  We checked out of the hotel after breakfast and were on the road en route Nags Head, NC by 8:30 AM.   We made one photo stop along the way, in Tappahannock, VA.

All proceeds from the poker run would be donated to Special Olympics, according to one motorcyclist to whom I inquired what was going on.

We arrived at A Whale’s Head Inn around 3:30 PM.  Denise arrived about an hour after we did.  Accompanying Denise were the other five people who would be vacationing with us for the week.  Denise’s two adult children and a friend arrived a little later.  The three young people spent one night with us.

Bob and I went for a walk on the beach that evening, as the sun was setting.