Last Friday, August 19th, Tom and I along with our granddaughter, Maddy, drove from Taneytown to Stafford, Virginia where we met up with our son, Todd, and his wife, Beth, and grandsons, Anthony and Parker, to travel down to Duck, North Carolina on the Outer Banks. We had rented a beach house in the Schooner Ridge section of Duck for a week. We had the use of club house that included 2 outdoor swimming pools and an indoor swimming pool. The sun shone brightly most of the week. Tuesday was cloudy with a few showers. A lot of time was spent on the beach soaking up the sunshine.
We did ride down to the Jockey's Ridge Park and walked up the huge sand dunes and then continued on down to the Hatteras Lighthouse on Monday.
We cooked most of our meals. Barbequed ribs, low country seafood boil and seafood pasta to name a few.
Maddy and Anthony enjoyed bogey boarding in the ocean. Parker liked to play in the sand but preferred swimming pool water to the ocean.
Wednesday, August 23rd, Tom and I spent that morning on the beach. Around noon we returned to the beach house along with Parker, Maddy and Anthony. Some sandwiches were made for lunch and Anthony carried some down to the beach for Todd and Beth. While sitting at the kitchen counter area Tom and I felt the house swaying and looked at one another saying we thought we had just had an earthquake. Maddy and Parker were on the lower floor and Maddy also felt the house sway. A little later Todd, Beth and Anthony returned and Todd said we had an earthquake- they had received a phone call from Beth's mother telling them about the quake and its location was close to Todd and Beth's home in Virginia.
During the week we were hearing about Hurricane Irene that was moving across the Atlantic Ocean but was not predicted to make landfall until late Friday or Saturday. By Thursday it was apparent that this strong storm was going to hit the Outer Banks area and a mandatory evacuation for all visitors had been ordered. We had hoped that we could stay until early Friday morning but were told that we had to leave or we would be escorted off the island by the sheriff. About 11am we had packed up and left our rented beach house a day early on a bright sunny day. The storm was not predicted to hit until Friday afternoon or evening. As we were leaving a mandatory evacuation had been ordered for all residents on Friday.
Tom and I are now at home awaiting the effects of the storm in our area.
