The Most Outer of the Banks

Whoa. It’s been
awhile. Hello, there, I suppose we
should catch up. There’s been a few
things that have happened since that epic trip up the Pacific Coast Highway,
though you can rest comfortable and know that I’m still here to talk about
motorcycles.

First off, I joined Adwerx, as referenced in the last post,
and I’m still there, loving it. It’s a
crazy, awesome, challenging, ever-changing, growing, exciting, rewarding and
frustrating all at the same time. I
suppose that’s the nature of startups, and this one’s no different on that front. For those of you who can directly relate to
the rollercoaster, I cheers you with my morning coffee and a knowing wink.

We’re still in Durham, though we’ve moved a bit outside of downtown into a house that’s been a joy to renovate. Erin’s still with Empire, though she’s moved into a Fine Wine consultant role and continues to rock it there, as you would simply expect of someone of her caliber.

Yes, there’s a million other things that’ve happened, but
let’s pretend we’ve spent the last three days chatting on a southern front
porch, rocking chairs in perfect synchronicity over coffee, lemonade, or bourbon
depending on the time of day.

Which brings us all the way up to last weekend…. Whew. That was a quick recap, glad we had those three days on the porch.

Ocracoke is something else.

These days I’m riding my 2014 Suzuki V Storm DL650. It’s a dream, no joke. I was riding a 1997 BMW R850 for a couple
years until the brakes stopped working and I wasn’t about to go through that
repair after I found out how much it was going to be. So I upgraded, and haven’t looked back since.

The original plan was to head to West Virginia, but, alas,
Hurricane Delta and rain determined it wasn’t to be. So I redirected to sunny weather and
determined that I was going to tackle the full Outer Banks loop, which is
something I’ve been eyeing for a number of years. Just start at one end, head as far as possible
to the other, and call it a day.

What a ride.

I headed out on Friday, getting out a little later than I wanted,
as I had a ticket on the 4:30 ferry from Cedar Island to Ocracoke. This meant I wasn’t really able to just leisurely
cruise, stop for coffee, stop for lunch, take a break, etc. I basically had to push most of the time, though
thankfully I still had enough time that I wasn’t forced to hit any major highway. This meant it was all backroads, which is the
way to do it if you can.

Of course, these days you can’t really just hang out anyway
due to Covid. North Carolina isn’t really
leading the country in our safety numbers, which is in part due to the need to
exercise our freedoms: freedom to shoot guns and the freedom from oppression of
the mask.

This stance, of course, basically means that I’m never going
to just hang out in a coffee shop.
Overblown fears? Maybe. But I figure why risk it? There’s not really much upside to the risk in
my mind. I’m fine to take risks (motorcycling,
anyone?) as long as the reward your receiving for taking the risk is worth
it. I also eat raw beef, a.k.a. steak
tartare, and have somehow still lived, but the reward was pure deliciousness. Not quite the same balance in my mind, but
people do get to make their choices.

So, in the end, it wasn’t bad to push it. I stopped at a McDonalds for some lunch, and
that was about it besides gas. The ride
was an amazing vista of NC farm country.
Dozens of school buses dropping off hundreds of mostly-Hispanic farm
hands to work a field. I thought we were
waaaaay past that type of manual labor in the agriculture industry, but
apparently not, as this was a repeated scene.

I was prepared for the Trump flags, of course, but I wasn’t
prepared for the combination of the Mexican national flag next to Trump
flags. I nearly turned my head all the
around trying to make sure I saw what I thought I saw. Bonkers.

Early in the ride, I stopped at some traffic, which was due
to a race weekend and the Galot Motorsports Park. I’m not sure how many people
attended, but it looked like it was going to be an event. Fun to see, and nice to get out of the Durham
blue bubble, where you’re mostly surrounded by people who think they same way
you do.

The last section of the ride was a preview of what was to
come. I didn’t think of Cedar Island as
an island until I hit that last piece.
It was a large stretch of road cutting through a massive tidal
area. Half water, half grass, and for as
far as the eye could see. Just
gorgeous. I had no idea, which is the whole
point of being out there.

Finally, the ferry ride itself. Other than trying to figure how to park a motorcycle
on a boat that’s going to be moving around so that it doesn’t fall over, it was
super straightforward.

And… 2.5 hours later, we arrive in Ocracoke. It’s mostly dark, I check into the hotel,
only to realize that there’s a full bar in the room. No joke, a full bar. $129/night, and I got a 2 story deck, a bar,
and one of the weirder rooms ever. A
quick dinner out and I was done for the day.

The Most Outer of the Banks

What to say about this ride.
Whew. Amazing. You’re just… out there. Ocracoke is a sliver of land in the middle of
nowhere. The town is clustered on one
side, tucked around a beautiful bay, and then the rest is just open dunes.

At times, there’s essentially just beach and ocean on one
side, and the sound on the other. You
can’t really even see shore, you’re so far out there. I had no idea it was going to be so awesome. I want to go back immediately. (Except for the fact that I had terrible phone
reception and the hotel had no wifi, which, come on now, that’s basically
required these days.)

The day was gorgeous, sun fully blazing but temps sticking
around 75˚. I could have just done laps
and ended up happy. But alas, the world
keeps turning and I had places to be.
Which brought me to the next ferry to Hatteras. I timed it perfectly, where I didn’t even
wait. There ferry was literally loading
when I pulled up, so I swung into the back of the line, and the ferry took off
before I had even parked the bike.

Hatteras felt much like Ocracoke, which isn’t surprising since
it’s in the middle of nowhere. That
section of the Outer Bank Scenic Highway was as amazing as the one on Ocracoke. The highway system felt way overbuilt for the
amount of civilization it reached, but then I suppose the pork has to go somewhere,
and I enjoyed every mile of it.

The crazy part about the whole Outer Banks system is the
evidence of the power of the ocean. These
are tiny spits of land, protecting the shore.
The ocean is constantly moving them around, and we pesky humans keep
building houses on shifting sands. The
ground moves under the houses essentially however mother nature wants.

Yes, there are techniques to sort-of-kind-of keep the shores
in place, but being out there just brought it all to light. On Ocracoke, I found out that there was a civil
war fort built on an island that disappeared in the early 20th
century. It was only recently discovered
by a diver, and I was reminded of the James Michener book Chesapeake, which
*spoiler alert* ends with the house being pulled down into the ocean due to
erosion.

It puts you in your place in the world and makes you feel
very, very small.

Unfortunately, once I hit Nags Head, the traffic really started
to kick in, and didn’t really let up, all the way to Corolla, where I ended the
day. This hotel had a huge pier on the
sound side, and was wonderful to be out on.
Quick run on the beach, sunset, dinner, obligatory photos, then bed.

Then it starts raining….

Next day was the ride home.
I knew it was going to have a chance of rain, but was hoping I would
have the first few hours free, maybe until around 11 or so. I left around 8:30. The rain started at
8:45. Sad. Wet and sad.

We didn’t cover this in our porch chat, but I had scotchgarded
my coat recently, so I had some false hope, which was quickly dashed. Once again, mother nature wins, but this time
in the short term, not just the long term.

I basically just pushed through. There was one moment in a tiny, nearly dead town
where a freight train had inconsiderately stopped on the main intersection of
the town. So, I popped up on the curb to
wait it out. Of course, there was no
reception to find an alternative route around the train. Argh.
So I just waited on the side of the road and contemplated why I ever
though scotchgard would save me from rain if it really tried.

My final, better decision was to stop at a Walgreens to pick
up some hand warmers. I hadn’t even
scotchgarded my leather gloves, so they were soaked straight through, marking
my hands with their tell-tell black stain on my skin.

After that, it was just a straight push through to the end,
6.5 hours after leaving from Carolla that morning.

Worth it?
Absolutely. I would do this route
again in a heart beat, though I would figure out a way to get up to Carova, the
beach past Carolla. It’s a beach-only
access, and I wasn’t about to test my bike on that without some planning.

But Hatteras and Ocracoke, get ready. I’m coming back when Covid’s
at bay and you’ve put on your full mid-summer, weekend polish.