Tales of Ocracoke NC.

A Tale of Ocracoke
Summer 2016

I had this bright idea to take the dogs with us on vacation this year. "Honey the "studio" I rented is pet friendly, lets take the dogs! We'll save a ton of money on boarding!" So we did! And that's all we did this year on vacation was tend to dogs.  We have a lot of dog in our family.  Together Waylon the bigger one, and Archie that smaller (but still not small one) weight about 170 pounds! We technically could have taken another good sized human along on vacation that could gone to the bathroom alone and fed themselves!

So sadly, most of my vacation photos include dogs. Maybe this will be an eye opener for others who also hope that bringing the dogs along will be "nice."

Here we are loaded down in the Prius (seriously) for a week of relaxation (ha!) at the beach. The dogs are squished, but still psyched.

They actually did very well in the car, given the 4 1/2 hour long drive + 1 hour of ferry. We fully expected vomit or a howling fit or something.

Waylon did have some sort of issue occur with his rear region while we were waiting for the ferry. It involved us evacuating the car. We then proceeded to hide while attempting to wipe his hind end with wet wipes without onlookers thinking we had lost our minds. We were successful. Isn't that why you carry wet wipes?

 

"Please tell me we are freaking there already."


We departed our house at 8am in central NC and arrived in Ocracoke at around 4:30 ish. We were all questioning our travel arrangements at this point.

 I will say this about Ocracoke, the beach is great!
It was pristine and secluded. We went to the second beach access from the village. The one without the bathroom and shower (we're tough).

We had a great beach day, it was a little too warm for the pups. We had a shade contraption (that was actually a bug tent, oops).

Archie learned that digging in sand is awesome! Waylon remembered that being coated in sand is icky (so did Jason!).

Ocracoke Coffee Company. Isn't it cute!

We did manage some dog free lounging at Ocracoke Coffee Company. I must say all the coffee we had on the island was legit. There are alot of artists living on the island and they don't mess around with their coffee. Ocracoke Coffee Company makes Starbucks look silly.

The boys managed some lounging too. Archie is taking advantage of Waylon's sleep deprivation by cuddling. Something Waylon does not usually allow. 

Archie takes lounging to a whole new level. He is borderline inappropriate. 

What we loved the most about Ocracoke is the ability to bike everywhere (oh, we squeezed bikes on the back of the Prius, too. Impressive, I know.) Our first whole day there we hopped on our biked and explored the whole island (doesn't take long!). There are many local places to eat out or grab an ice cream cone. 

Waterfront at Smacnally's 

Waterfront at Silver Lake

The Ocracoke Lighthouse

 If you like secluded, quaint places with lots of bike accessibly and a very laid back environment then Ocracoke may be somewhere you'd enjoy visiting. Here are some of my favorites from our trip:

• Springer's Point Nature Preserve: it is a little nature trail that leads to a small, clean sound front beach. You can swim in the cool, shallow water and hunt for shells and crabs. 
• Smacnally's Waterfront Restaurant: I'll admit, the food was not that great. But the atmosphere is really cool. If you go around 4pm you can watch the fisherman come in and weigh/clean their catch. We preferred to sit here and have drinks.
• Exploring the island on bikes
•  Ocracoke Coffee Company: we had iced coffee and smoothies, which were both great. 
• Books to Be Red: Nice bookstore and owner. Their selection and prices were good. Plus they had a lot of local books about Ocracoke and the Outer Banks to choose from. 
• The beach access by the campground. It was so nice, don't forget to bring some sort of shade. And be friendly to the locals, a lady was quite angry with me when she thought I did not say hello to her. 
• Kayak tour with Ride the Wind: we paddled through the sound into some marsh. We used small little nets to gentle catch small creatures in a estuary. Jason saw a clam the size of his head!

Places I will visit next time: 

• Dajio: nice resturaunt with seafood fare and a patio or brick fired pizza
• The Flying Melon: a Cajun inspired restaurant
• Sail boat ride: it's expensive though $40 dollars each
• Ghost Walk Historic Tour
• More beach time!
• Off shore fishing, also expensive! But you'll definitely catch something!

We ended up cutting our trip a little short, we were all getting a little restless. It was terribly hot (end of June/ 1st of July) and the bugs in Ocracoke are terrible! I read reviews before we went and I thought, "I grew up on the Gulf Coast how bad can they be?" Bad, Deep Woods Off sort of bad. Don't mess around with that Skintastic stuff, opt for the big green can.

Loving the ferry ride!

"Are we home yet ... How about now?"

Archie thought Waylon would make for a comfy seat.