USA roadtrip recap - Part 2

Kittyhawk, Kill Devil Hills and Nagshead, NC - That's right, those are actual place names. Tim, Jess, Leah and I made it to Kittyhawk on the Atlantic Coast of North Carolina at 3:00am on Sunday morning and parked up across the road from the beach. It was a stinking hot night and felt like a sauna in the van but we work up early, walked passed the church service on the beach and went for an 8:00am swim in the Atlantic Ocean. We then went to where the Wright brothers made their first flights before going for an afternoon swim. We then drove inland to a hick town called Williamston but styed in the best hotel/motel of the trip.



We stayed predominantly in chain hotels or motels due to the fact they were everywhere and with coupons or internet deals, it was cheaper for the 4 of us (later, the 3 of us) than hostels and most of the time we got free breakfast and heated pools.

Wilmington, NC - Not realising that our visas expired in a few weeks we thought we could take it easy so we headed back out to the coast and had a couple of relaxing days in Wilmington. We spent a couple of days at the beach. The water was so warm that it felt like a bath when we got in but the waves were good and we got a couple of hours body surfing in. We also started our love affair with buffets after stuffing ourselves in the Chinese buffet next to our motel. Buffets are everywhere in the southern states.

Mobile, AL - Over the course of a couple of days of just driving (and a breakdown) we made our way to Mobile, Alabama where Tim had a mate from the NZ Air Force who is living over here for a coupe of years. We stayed with Jim, Bernie and their daughter Kaitlyn for 4 nights. We lost Leah on the first day when she went to Florida for a week before she headed back home. On the second night we had a BBQ with southern style ribs and gorged ourselves.



Jim arranged a river trip with one of his workmates (Don Johnson) for us on the Saturday. Don was a real southern bloke. We went out on his boat and spent all day drinking and swimming in several places along the river system in Mobile. We also went out to the Gulf of Mexico and went for a swim as the sun set and our intoxication levels grew. We got back to Don's place at around 11pm and when he found out I was a cop he was insistant that I saw his gun collection. Due to the number of beers he had, Don had a little trouble remembering the code to his safe and after 45 minutes managed to get it open. He then proceeded to pull out many hi powered automatic rifles, an oozy and numerous large pistols. As he handed them to me he told me to be careful because they were all loaded. Good to know.



The next day Jim and Bernie took us for a drive along the coast. We saw a lot of the damage from Hurricane Katrina and this was over 100 miles from the epicentre. We went for an afternoon swim in the very salty Gulf of Mexico. Tim tried to catch what he thought was a flounder with his hands and found out the hard way that it was an electric ray. For the rest of the day, Tim was a little bit green, so it must have had some whack. Realising that we only had a few weeks left our visas we then decided to fastrack it across the states.