Today was a great day, which was nice after the disappointment of yesterday. Jeanna and I have been to Cedar Island many times to catch the ferry to Ocracoke, but we never visited Harkers Island or Atlantic. The goal today was to visit both.
We went to Harkers Island to visit the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum. We were expecting an older, smaller museum, as is so often found in small towns. We were really surprised at how large and modern the museum was. This is one of those museums, that if your ever in the area, it's well worth your visit.
As the museum's name implies, at large portion was dedicated to waterfowl, and especially decoys. There were hand carved decoys throughout.
Anchors like this one are very popular on Harkers Island - they were even being sold in the museum. So many houses and businesses had them, that I wonder if they were sold as a local fundraiser.
After leaving Harkers Island, I went through the country until I rejoined US70 at Smyrna. In the early 80's, I worked for Wrangler Jeans and spent some time installing a computer system in a sewing plant there. The building must have been torn down, because nothing looked familiar to me today. Still, riding through the area brought back a lot of memories of my work there.
Today was quite windy, with wind speeds of 20 to 25 MPH. Luckily, most of the day I had a tailwind. After I passed Davis, the landscape changes - it goes from mostly wooded to mostly open marshland. It was at this point that I really started to fly. I know touring is not supposed to be how quick you can get from Point A to Point B, but one time I looked at my Garmin to discover that I was going over 26 MPH on flat ground. That really brought a smile to my face :-)
Riding (or in today's case flying) through the marshes.
At Sealevel, I detoured off US70 to ride down to Atlantic. With that turn, I was headed South, and the tailwind became a headwind. I found myself struggling to do 7-8 MPH for a mile or so, until I turned back to the north. Atlantic has fallen on hard times, and all the businesses have closed and there was nothing really to see. While the road to Atlantic was in good shape and there was no traffic, I would not make the detour again.
A radar installation at Marine Corps Outlying Field Atlantic
Shortly after passing the radar station, I was back in US70 with only about 9 miles to go. I called ahead to Jeanna, and she had a cold beer poured for me when I arrived around 4:30.
Life is so good!!
Today's ride: 62 miles (100 km) Total: 827 miles (1,331 km)
