Please DON'T Go to Hatteras Island, NC

I believe that everyone who lives in the eastern half of Virginia, north Carolina and Maryland is required by law to vacation at least once in the Outer Banks of NC. Its a rule, and if you haven't yet fulfilled this requirement then by all means you should, and soon. However, I want to urge you to visit and stay in the popular Nags Head or Corrolla beach side locations. There you can have the busy beach sceane and all the bars and restauraunts you could ever hope for while enjoying the sound of the waves against the shore... or is that the cars whizzing by? Sometimes its so hard to tell through the noise of your partying college-aged neighbors.

Whatever you do, please do not plan on spending much if any of your vacation on the island of Hatteras further to the south. Perhaps a short day trip to see and climb the famous Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is permissable, but other than that you will want to skip this area entirely. Trust me when I say that driving through the unique and fragile landscape of Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge and being able to view both sound and ocean from the same sand dune are things that are quite uninteresting to most vacationers. Really, how many cranes do you want to see wading through the marshes and Pamlico Sound anyway?

There's truly not much to do and see south of Nags Head unless you enjoy quiet and peaceful days of soaking up the sun on the ocean or sound beaches. You won't find many people to talk to or beach babes to stare at over dark sunglasses. Lots of open sand even in the peak of summer makes it hard to choose the perfect waterside spot. You'll really only have the company of a few casual surfers, young families and, on the sound side especially, some friendly but quite solitary kite boarders. Trust me when I say you will miss the planes buzzing overhead with their advertisement banners and the cozy feeling of sand kicked on you every minute from the swarms of people passing by your tiny blanket area.

Shopping is much too difficult on the island as well. Chain stores are few and far between and almost nonexistant until a few years ago. Only one major grocery store means you may have to shop at a smaller locally owned market, or plan ahead to bring specialty food with you. And you'll probably have to bring food, because there are very few 'name brand' places to eat out while you're there. True, there are some smaller restaurants, most of them mom & pop shops with a weather beaten exterior, but if you can't eat at your tried and true Ruby Tuesday's you may as well just stay home, right? I know we wouldn't want to ruin our vacation by planning meals ahead of time and having to actually cook, maybe even outside on a grill, while we're supposed to be relaxing. Best to just stay on the north of the OBX were Shoney's and Outback Steakhouse are easy to find.





If you are vacationing with kids you will be even more frustrated. Yes, there is a somewhat run down water park and go-cart track on the island, but you will find no arcades or extravagant putt-putt golf courses or, God forbid, a McDonalds. In fact, there is NO PLACE on the island to get a fast food kids meal that comes with a toy. So what will your children do? Seriously, how many hours can kids actually play in the sand and water? I wouldn't know since mine have never yet told me they were bored of it, but I'm sure I wouldn't want them to be out there for more than 5 or 6 hours, tops. I guess you could always go to the shipwreck museum or take the neat (and free) ferry over to the even more remote island of Ocrakoke, or visit the one small local toy shop or pottery studio or Native American museum, or even complete the Cape Hatteras National Seashore junior ranger activities, but don't you think your kids would be better off near 'civilization' and arcades and fast food? Plus, you know they can't possibly be happy without being shuttled from one shopping mall to the next, so I advise you to not even consider the villages of Hatteras Island as vacation alternatives.

But most importantly, whatever you do, DO NOT tell your friends to head down to Hatteras for a truly relaxing vacation. We wouldn't want them to be dissapointed by having nothing to do at night besides watching the same old spectacular sunsets over the water. There's way too many empty houses and campgrounds down there too. Anyone visiting for any length of time might become lonely or actually come to feel like they are one of the unlucky few who get to enjoy such a quiet, if temporary, life. Although you can find an occasional small local spa or coffee shop, amenities are few so those who go have to make due by keeping themselves occupied by a reading good book and walking some of the trails in the park areas. Be sure your friends do not underestimate the incredible solitude they may experience if the venture past the popular OBX tourist spots. Its certainly no vacation for the faint of heart.

I urge you not to go, just skip the lower secton of the barrier islands entirely. If you don't, you might accidently fall victim to the lure of this protected national treasure and be lost to the overcrowded and over commercialized beaches farther north forever.

Hiking Skills for Cubs: Day Camp Day 4

Ever announced that you were going to be leading a group of kids on a hike and had your ears accosted with groans and whines and all manner of under-breath grumbles? Unfortunately for me, I have a few too many times. Although I have yet to figure out just where some kids have gotten this negative stigma to the word 'hike' (my own kids beg to go on hikes, so I just don't get it), I have found that children often can use the help of a motivator to make a walk through the woods something less of a chore.

So for my last day of the Cub Skills station at camp I came prepared to motivate the boys toward enjoying our 1 mile hike. First, I had pre-hiked the path and found a cool destination that could be used as the end of our trail. A spillway for the resivoir's dam with some neat climbing rocks on the bank of the river. Score! I also created a hiking bingo game for the boys to bring on the hike, which conveniently listed many trees and birds which they needed to be able to identify to earn the Hiking pin. How very sneaky of me to include requirements in something billed as a 'fun' activity!

Click image to download printable PDF.

But I had an even better secret weapon to get the boys excited about the hike. I brought with me many small tubs filled with various goodies and some small plastic baggies. Before each group sallied forth they got to make their very own trail mix to enjoy on the walk. You've never seen kids so excited to put scoops of pretzels, Goldfish and M&M's into a baggie before. I don't think I heard a single grumble or complaint about starting the hike since they had one hand in their snack mix and the other on their bingo sheet and pencil. Conveniently, the character trait the camp was focusing on that day happened to be posotive attitiude too, which I happily reminded the boys of before the hike and hinted that those exemplifying that trait might just walk back with an extra spirit token or two.

We happliy walked the rocky path, the boys excitedly checking things off their bingo sheets, including many things that apparently ONLY they could see. I tried not to mind the obvious cheating and told myself they were only trying to please me and themselves. When we reached the spillway and rocks, the expressions on their faces was priceless. There's something about kids and runnign water that makes them stare in awe. After a group picture and a short break to eat more trail mix and point out some nearby poison ivy, the hike back went just a smoothly and pleasently as the hike down. I'm not sure who was more proud of themselves, me or the boys. I also passed out information sheets for the Virginia State Parks Trail Quest program to those boys who were interested in getting the pin for that day's hike.

Five group hikes in one day, and no memorable complaints to speak of. In fact, every boy seemed to have a truly great time and was all smiles after leaving my station. If that's not a testament to how much kids can actually enjoy hiking then I don't know what else to do to help. Dare I say even the parent chaperones, one of which blatently had said he hated hiking, thouroughly enjoyed themselves on the walk. I truly hope that the week's activities and the culmination of the short hike will inspire more of those kids to get outside and walk some trails with their Dens and family members.

One of the groups at the "end" of the trail. Can you tell they had fun?

Hiking Skills for Cubs: Day Camp Day 3

Day three of my experience leading a station at Cub Day Camp was the one that left me the most fearful, mainly due to the fact that I was treading in waters unknown, at least for me. In an effort to gain some 'cool' factor points with the kids and also help them to know that hiking isn't necessarily just a boring walk in the woods, I decided to create a mini geocaching hunt for the boys to experience on their own. Sounds like fun, huh? But truthfully, I had never actually geocached before. I had once borrowed a GPS unit and planned to go geocaching at a family camping trip we did over the summer, but my oldest ended up getting sick and we spent more time just sitting in camp than we had planned. So, even though I knew how it worked, I was deathly afraid that I'd forget a step or do somehow do something wrong. Even more frightening was the fact that some of the parent chaperones actually HAD been geocaching, and I didn't want to be 'called out' on a faux pas in front of the boys!


On day two I had taken some time during lunch break to hide my cache, complete with enough prizes for all. A friend, the same one that lent me her personal GPS earlier in the year for our unsuccessful trip, miraculously was able to come up with a whole SET of GPS units, six identical ones, and after reading the manual at least 5 times over, I took a few readings from where I had hidden my Cub Cache. Luckily they were all very close, so first hurdle seemed to be crossed. The night before the big day I took some time to program all the units with the secret cache's co-ordinates and make sure they all seemed to be working proplerly. Then it was off for a poor nights sleep of wondering what I was thinking to plan such an activity. Boys wandering lost through the woods for days did cross my poor, exhausted brain on more than one occasion.

The session on this third day began with an explanation of the Earth's magnetic poles and all the kids got to use a compass. They learned how to align it to north, then find directions and headings. Then the true fun began. I handed each of the adult chaperones a pre-programmed GPS unit and paired the boys off. Each adult took two (or sometimes three) boys out at a time to find the hidden cache. The remaining boys got to make their own compasses using a needle and magnet (a VERY cool project to show the Earth's magnatism) and also draw maps of their neighborhoods noting several locations near their homes. To my relief, the first groups came back beaming with their prizes - SILLY BANDS! The rest of the day went off without a hitch, and I'm happy to say that all the boys found the cache and no one was left wandering around the park that night.

Showing off their prizes after finding the cache!

Geocaching was probably the highlight of the Skills station for many of those boys. I'm so glad I went out on a limb and did the activity! Boys and treasure hunting go together like marshmallows and chocolate, its a natural pairing. My hope is that at least a few of the boys went home and told their parents what fun geocaching was and that they and their families will try it out on their own, searching for real caches and having a blast outside.