After leaving Frisco, we continued north up Hatteras Island. We weren’t far from the campground when we stopped to check out the Hatteras Island Lighthouse, which has to be nicest of them all. Jennifer and I commented numerous times about how great it looked. Something about the red and stone base with the black and white tower. The perfect blue sky as a backdrop probably didn’t hurt either.
After resupplying at Walmart, we headed to our campground for the next two nights at Oregon Inlet. Oregon Inlet is the northernmost of the four campgrounds within the Hatteras Island National Seashore, and the last beach campground we’d stay at. Compared to Frisco’s rolling dunes and nice private campsites, the campground at Oregon Inlet was just one big grass field with closely-spaced parking spots. Upon seeing this, we were really regretting our decision to leave Frisco. Making the best of it, we hiked down to the beach to play for the evening. The kids had a blast sliding down the windswept dunes; Jennifer and I enjoyed watching them have so much fun. We played at the beach again the next day and the kids had fun collecting mermaids purses, which are shark or skate egg casings. There were hundreds of them along the high-tide line.
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The next afternoon, we drove a short ways up the road to check out the Bodie Island lighthouse. After that, we headed over to the marina to watch the charter boats come in and look at their catch. There were lot of mahi and other fish, but the prize of the day was a couple of big eye tuna. Back at the campground, Jennifer went to take a shower while I was prepping dinner. I was surprised when she returned a few minutes later with dry hair and a bowl of cod soup. Terry, the leader of a boyscout troop gave it to her and it was delicious. After she showered, we walked down to thank Terry for the soup and ask for his recipe: cod, potatoes, onions, water, and Tony Cachere’s Spice N Herbs seasoning. He gave us another bowl of soup as well as some oysters that he harvested himself and had just fried up. They were even better than the soup. We packed up the next morning and continued our journey north, ending our time on the Outer Banks.
