sweet reunion

After setting out from Washington and making great time until we hit the Outer Banks, we sat in terrible traffic, got provisions from the extremely crowded Food Lion, and eventually made it to the ferry and across to Ocracoke. We rented the same cottage we had two years ago, so it felt a little like coming home. We barely got to the rental complex before the office closed, threw our stuff in the cottage, then took a very quick trip to the beach before dinner. Liam insisted on wearing flippers, then realized how much they slowed him down and promptly abandoned them.

Sunday morning was much more relaxed. As is my tradition when we're on vacation, I was up in the morning to watch the sunrise, and Henry decided to get up to join me.

We spent the day doing beachy things, then lunching, then more beaching. I had to do a little bit of work (*very* sad face) in the afternoon, so Mike and the boys had to go beaching without me.

Surprisingly, this morning they all joined me at sunrise for some shelling at the very north end of the island, kind of by the ferry terminal, where we had heard there were some great shells. We found some olives, but we also found greenhead flies, big suckers that bite so hard you start bleeding. That was no fun, so we quickly abandoned the effort.

After a morning at the beach, we had lunch, then spent the afternoon riding around the village, then rewarded ourselves with some ice cream at Corky's.

We finished today the way we started, on the beach hunting for shells. Max had much better luck this time, and found a nice-size whelk (along with a lot of sand). We stayed out until the sun went down, then it was back to the cottage to clean up and relax.