After the splendor of Mansfield Plantation in South Carolina, we headed for the southern outer banks of North Carolina. Morehead City seemed like an interesting spot on the map, between a lot of other interesting spots, but we cut our two-night stay down to one. Nonetheless, two interesting things happened there. First, I embarked on a swim to a little island that seemed very outer-banksyish. It was great until I sliced my foot up on barnacles trying to climb up on the dock. Second, when we left our hotel (the Bask – large building below), a magnificent storm cloud swept over us, then came the lightning & rain. In this set of pix you can see those clouds, along with part of drive up, a sunset, and a view from the hotel that shows where I swam…

While we had driven up Emerald Island, we waited ’til the next day to go back and check out Fort Macon, site of a Civil War battle and an long rich history of wars among people and with nature…

After Fort Macon, we drove by two more Civil War battlefields, one at Newport Barracks, another at New Bern. Both featured interpretive displays, the former a little encampment, the latter a walking tour into the forest. The New Bern Battlefield had a pretty good presentation of where, when and how the fighting went down. We also stopped at Edenton and explored their very nice visitor’s center in an historic home…

When we decided to cut one night in Morehead City, mostly to eventually shorten our drive to Williamsburg (’cause we gotta turn in the rental car before noon), we found a B&B called “The Teacherage.” Funky website, odd reservation process, but well-located for our purposes. Funnily enough, we stopped by another “Teacherage” containing a museum next to the Newport Barracks Civil War display. (I guess it was a thing to have the teachers housed next to the school, kind of like a “Parsonage” next to a church.) The brave owners of this place also purchased the boarded up school with plans for ecotourism which have evolved into apartments. In addition to those pics, you can see Squeeza’s Country Kitchen where we had dinner (after a long and adventurous drive looking for another place that was closed on Mondays). Welcome to the countryside…

Part of that dinner adventure involved checking out Merchant’s Millpond State Park and the Great Dismal Swamp, two beautiful nature spots featuring wetlands ecosystems. Here ya go…