Monday, May 24, 2004
Wingaling Things
Ah, back from a week in North Carolina, where weather is weather and barbecue is barbecue. The fact that I just spent a week in a place where May is actually spring verging on summer is emphasized by the fact that I am now back in a place where I have to wear a sweatshirt outside and there is no sun. Stupid freakish tornado warnings.
Anyway, from Monday through Friday afternoon, I was at the beach. I love Nags Head. My family has had a beach cottage there since just after WWII. The land was an acre bought cheap amongst my great-grandfather's friends, a fourth or fifth of which was given to him, and the cottage was suplus prefabricated officer's quarters, which he had trucked out and reassembled for about $500. It has undergone some changes and improvements, but it's still basically the same. It is right next to Jockey's Ridge State Park, so all the neighbors are park rangers. My mom has been there every summer of her life, I think, and I've been almost every summer.
This year, there was something new, though! Besides all the gigantic rental houses, I mean. To celebrate the First Flight Centennial, there are now 100 individually decorated winged horses from the Winged Horse Extravaganza* along the highway between Manteo and Duck. I only counted 30 of them, but they're all really neat. I think my favorites were the golden horse with butterfly wings and the mirrored horse, but there was also the horse completely decorated in lots of different butterfly wings, and the half pegasus/half mer-horse. (There are pictures of some of the horses here.) Oh, and there was also the zebra wearing a French beret with little black wings too far down its back, so they looked like they were sprouting from its butt. I'm not sure if it was meant to be a fashion statement or not.
I want to go back! I want to find more horses! I want to take my own pictures! No fair, only spending four days there. I hope they're still there next year. Maybe I'll have to find some way to go back this summer.
*A few years ago, Raleigh had the Red Wolf Ramble, which was also really neat. There have also been lots of cow parades in various cities, which have now branched out into various other animals, besides wolves and winged horses.
Ah, back from a week in North Carolina, where weather is weather and barbecue is barbecue. The fact that I just spent a week in a place where May is actually spring verging on summer is emphasized by the fact that I am now back in a place where I have to wear a sweatshirt outside and there is no sun. Stupid freakish tornado warnings.
Anyway, from Monday through Friday afternoon, I was at the beach. I love Nags Head. My family has had a beach cottage there since just after WWII. The land was an acre bought cheap amongst my great-grandfather's friends, a fourth or fifth of which was given to him, and the cottage was suplus prefabricated officer's quarters, which he had trucked out and reassembled for about $500. It has undergone some changes and improvements, but it's still basically the same. It is right next to Jockey's Ridge State Park, so all the neighbors are park rangers. My mom has been there every summer of her life, I think, and I've been almost every summer.
This year, there was something new, though! Besides all the gigantic rental houses, I mean. To celebrate the First Flight Centennial, there are now 100 individually decorated winged horses from the Winged Horse Extravaganza* along the highway between Manteo and Duck. I only counted 30 of them, but they're all really neat. I think my favorites were the golden horse with butterfly wings and the mirrored horse, but there was also the horse completely decorated in lots of different butterfly wings, and the half pegasus/half mer-horse. (There are pictures of some of the horses here.) Oh, and there was also the zebra wearing a French beret with little black wings too far down its back, so they looked like they were sprouting from its butt. I'm not sure if it was meant to be a fashion statement or not.
I want to go back! I want to find more horses! I want to take my own pictures! No fair, only spending four days there. I hope they're still there next year. Maybe I'll have to find some way to go back this summer.
*A few years ago, Raleigh had the Red Wolf Ramble, which was also really neat. There have also been lots of cow parades in various cities, which have now branched out into various other animals, besides wolves and winged horses.
