What is this?

Occasionally, I see things on the beach (and elsewhere on the island) which seem to have been put there intentionally but I have to stop and wonder what they are.

Here's the latest one.



My vote: a monument to beach bonfires. Although I'm not sure how the orange sock (fabric carrot?) fits in to that...

Projects

There are several projects going on here lately, so next time you are on the island (assuming you are not currently here!) you might notice the improvements!

They are working on the road (repaving):


...and on adding a bike path parallel to the road...



...and on expanding the building at the air strip.



Just realized all the projects are transportation related - so whether you drive, bike, or fly here, you'll probably notice and benefit from the changes.

Happy 100th!

I went to a birthday party today for Ann Scarborough, who turned 100. Triple digits - how exciting is that? I hope to be as spry as she still is, if I make it to that age!

The party was at the Flying Melon, and was crowded with many well wishers. The restaurant was beautifully decorated for the event, with balloons...



...flowers...



...and (best of all) photos of Ann in each decade of her life...



...including this one of her at age 3!



Here are a couple of pictures of her today, only 97 years later!

Open house

The Ocracoke Volunteer Fire Department held an Open House today, during which local kids could climb in and on the fire trucks, press the buttons to make the siren wail, and even practice spraying water with the hose! They gave all kids who attended a cute plastic fireman's hat, and a "junior firefighter" sticker, as well as info. about fire safety designed especially for kids (coloring pages, etc.) The event was really well attended, and the volunteers made sure the kids all had a ball. I thought this was a terrific event, and one that all local firehouses should do.

Here are a couple of pictures. Of course, I took loads more of Connor, but I'll post those on his blog.



Noah and Connor on the back of one of the trucks, with their hats and stickers.



Connor and Jackson working the waterhose.

Full, fun day

We had a rather full, but very enjoyable day today. It started this morning with brunch at the Flying Melon to celebrate Rob's birthday. There was a really funny photo op when Sundae loaded him up with "bling" (hat, necklace, earring), in honor of the fact that the gift he bought himself was a somewhat-flashy (at least for Rob) watch. Unfortunately - or fortunately, if you're Rob and might not like for a picture of yourself in bling to be on Island Daily - I didn't have my camera! Anyway, brunch at the Flying Melon is always terrific, but especially so when it's with a group of friends. So that was an excellent way to start our Saturday.

This evening, we went on the Schooner Windfall sunset sail. Luckily, I remembered my camera for that, so here are a few pictures.



Passengers helping to raise the sails.



We had brought some champagne and enjoyed a toast (it was our anniversary).





I loved the combination of the sunset reflected in the windows while the full moon shone above this house.



After the sail, we had a fantastic dinner at the Back Porch, including a seriously delicious frangelica cheesecake dessert. That was an excellent way to end our Saturday.

It's pouring

As I sat down to start typing this blog, it started raining quite hard. Good thing, since I didn't have any thoughts about what I was going to blog about today! Not that the fact that it's raining makes for a particularly interesting blog, but at least it was something. So I put a blog in "draft" with the title you see above.

Well, I finally got around to finishing up the blog a few days later, so now I can tell you more about the storm that I had just heard the beginning of when starting this post. It was wild. It woke me in the middle of the night (I have no idea what time it was, I didn't look at a clock, but my guess is around 5 AM) with very frequent lightning, and thunder that sounded like it was right above my house. It continued for a good long while - again, I'm not sure how long, since I still refused to look at the clock, even though I was at this point wide awake, but it was probably between 15 minutes and half an hour. I don't remember ever previously hearing thunder peals that were quite that loud, or that continued for that length of time.

The lightning was amazingly bright, too. I kept my eyes closed for most of the time (I was hoping to fall back asleep!), but could clearly see the change in the light in the bedroom anyway. I love lightning, and actually briefly considered getting out of bed to go to a window and try to see it, but I also love being all snuggled under the covers in a warm bed, so I stayed put. I would have loved to see a radar image of the storm, too, but didn't do so, for the same reason.

Last show of the season

Tonight, I went to the last Molasses Creek show (of the season - not, as one audience member worried, the last ever). I realized yesterday that I had not attended a single Molasses Creek show at Deep Water Theater this year. I had seen them at the Jolly Roger on a few Sunday nights, and performing a handful of songs at the Wednesday night Opry show, but I had not gone to a pure Molasses Creek show this year. I decided that was just plain wrong, and took my last opportunity to resolve the situation.

I was glad I did! The show was terrific. Normally, at this point in a blog of this sort I would
a) insert photos and
b) recommend you do whatever it was I just did.

But...

a) I forgot my camera and
b) you can't attend a Molasses Creek concert (at least not at Deep Water) until next year.

Sorry about that, on both counts!