jere7my | Jun. 19th, 2005

( First morning pictures. )

The Wright brothers took their first wobbling flights just a few miles from where we were staying. On Monday, I organized an excursion to their memorial. (Here it is, from space.) There are two museums, because NASA and the National Parks Service seem to be doing a Hatfield-n-McCoy thing over the sacred ground. A metal rail marks the site of the Wrights' test launches, and four stones, each successively farther away, mark their landings. ("Think of how much farther they could have gone if those damn stones hadn't been there!" someone said.) The fourth, much farther than the others, was necessarily the last, as the plane was damaged on landing after such an ambitious flight. Elliott ran zooming down the flight path (visible just north of the map in the link, above) while I adopted a curmudgeonly persona and insisted that "this powered flight nonsense will only lead to ruin, by gum." There was a museum with a full-scale model of their first plane, which the young transit geeks among us puzzled over, tracing the wires and imagining the flexions; there was a beautiful memorial on a hill, shaped like a great stone wing, which we dutifully hiked up to and admired. It was actually quite inspiring, made more so by the oohs and aahs of the transit geeks. ( See some pix. )

After that, those of us who didn't need to return home to cook for Red Drum's barbecue went on to Professor Hacker's Lost Treasure Golf, just a mile away. A rickety little train took us past animated dioramas of miners and pirates and gold, which was too damn cute for words: the Outer Banks encapsulated, as far as I was concerned. I did what I always do at minigolf, which is to start off strong and then choke around hole 8. There were no animated elements in the holes, which was unfortunate; not a North Carolina thing, it seems. ( Here we are a-golfin'. )

There was a lovely BBQ at Above It All, organized by the Red Drummers; I had nothing to do with it, but was happy to eat some very tasty burgers and pasta salad. ( One pic from the BBQ. )

My contribution came later, around 10PM: we dug a hole in the sand, and in it I arranged a pyramid of logs, some handsful of sea grass, and a firestarter. Instant beach bonfire! Toasted marshmallows! Interrupting starfish! Camaraderie! Sand in your pants! Smoke in your face! Loud Led Zeppelin from the neighbors, who were also setting off fireworks! Despite the neighbors, it was a pretty splendid evening, and I think we all bonded around the fire. The sea seemed utterly dark when we looked away from the fire; it was good to be surrounded by friends and snuggling.

Midnight came, and our permit expired; we splashed seawater on the coals until they were cool to the touch, then went our separate ways. Some of us returned to Red Drum, seeking Our Friend (Who Is No Longer) In Hawaii's showing of Psycho Beach Party, but she'd grown sick of waiting for us and gone to bed. Instead, we watched a little bit of Kiss Me Quick—it's an old SF nudie-cutie I'd brought, featuring Sterilox from the Buttless Galaxy and a guy with pencil on his face doing a bad Dr. Strangelove impression and a lot of naked busty women dancing around—and then the MST3K version of Teenagers from Outer Space. Once again,