Spiders down here are scary

October 27th

I know children read this blog, so enjoy this frog instead!

Nicole found it funny that I panicked so much and slept so little last night. The ladies room, however, wasn't so funny, as she saw a giant wolf spider hanging out by the door. Wolf spiders have a body about the size of one's hand, with legs that stretch out even longer. After trying to find a way to open the windows--and failing--Nicole spotted a nearby traffic cone. She grabbed the cone and pushed it towards the spider. The arachnid didn't want any part of this and ran across the bathroom floor, giving Nicole access to the front door.

"Kevin," she said once she got back. "I don't want to stay too long."

We packed up our tent and headed back towards the main office and its much cleaner facilities. After a rather enlightening conversation about wolf spiders with one of the camp staff, we started the days ride and headed west towards North Carolina's outer banks. We stopped in Sunbury--the only "town" on route for another 50 miles--and purchased some boxed pasta for future use as well as a gallon of fresh water to hold us over.

The Great Dismal Swamp.

Once we left Sunbury, we found ourselves riding alongside the Great Dismal Swamp. Despite its name, its actually quite scenic, and the trees in the swamp were displaying their late October colors.

Lunch posed itself a problem. There was only one restaurant on this road--in fact, the only restaurant accessible within 15 miles. I set my GPS for Peggy's Country Cafe, and was none to pleased to hear the machine blip and the display say, "Now arriving," when all I could see where residential houses and more swampland. Had they closed? Moved? I called them to find out.

They were less than 1/16th of a mile up the road, obscured by a slight bend in the road and a few tall trees. What a relief!

The menu was basically fried everything. I think I had fried fish, although it may have been fried chicken. We also ordered a side of fried apple slices. Seriously. We had sweet potato pie for dessert just to add some variance to our meal.

As we got closer and closer to the shore, the wind starting picking up, and Nicole's knee started hurting from overexertion. After we ran out of ice packs, we decided to go off the route into Elizabeth City rather than try riding another 30 miles into Kitty Hawk. We were treated with excellent sunset views as we crossed the bridge over Abermerle Sound into the city.

We arrived on the outskirts of Elizabeth City just in time for sunset.

After we had time to shower and change into regular clothes, we asked the hotel receptionist if there were any places to eat that were in walking distance.

"Not many," she said. "There's really only one that you can walk to."

I guess Elizabeth City isn't known for walking, because we found about five restaurants that were about 1/10 of a mile from one another--all literally across the street from the hotel. To our surprise, we found a Mexican restaurant. It seemed like a welcome change after lunch.

Tomorrow, Kitty Hawk. After that, the wild horses of Corova Beach . . .