History Made - Two Firsts

Let's start this blog with a happy guy, my dad, Floyd. He loves collecting and categorizing his shells! When we beach-comb he spends hours stuffing his pockets with "precious finds."

In my last blog I promised more pictures, namely of our time at the Wright Brothers National Memorial Park and that of the lost colony at Roanoke. Let's jump in...

The memorial, just outside the beach town of Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, is located on the grounds where the first power flight was conducted by the Wright Brothers 108 years ago. We happened on the museum on its anniversary date of that historic flight, the one day out of the year the admission is free! How is that for off-season luck?

These two brothers owned a printing business and a bicycle shop. They were self-taught and actually built their own engine to propel the Kitty Hawk. The next two pictures show this replica from different angles. There is no original surviving Kitty Hawk we learned because after the fourth successful flight, while trying to put the plane away in its hanger, the wind picked it up and tumbled it into a rubble heap. Indeed, this was a bitter-sweet days for the Wright brothers.

What most impressed me about studying the replica and hearing the lecture was how complicated this simple craft really was. The controls were ingenious, the construction was strong, but lightweight. These two brothers would build very small models and they built a compact wind tunnel unit to test their models. They chose the outer bank island because of its constant wind yet temperate climate.

Modern day kite flying on the same grounds just outside of the museum. I just may have to take up the hobby; it looked like it was good exercise and a lot of fun!

I would highly recommend a stop off at this memorial, it is educational and inspiring. These two brothers dared to do what no one thought possible.

Upon leaving the outer banks of North Carolina we decided to stop off on Roanoke Island and visit the site of the Lost Colony. Complete with a visitor's center and self-guided tour of the grounds, we gained a sense of the history of the area, and what a risk it was for those brave souls, men, women and children who ventured into the New World. At the Visitor's Center I picked up my next book, A Kingdom Strange, The Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke, by James Horn. This book published in 2010 promises to be an up-to-date read on not only the history of the failed colony, but also what they are discovering about the missing folk, the colony of less than three years in the making and all of its inhabitants gone without a trace - until recently, perhaps. It appears that those original inhabitants may have joined local tribes of the area. Hints of such lay in early accounts of light-skinned blue-eyed natives found and one tribe that a hundred years later spoke a form of English. Modern day genetic testing is now being performed to connect the dots.

This is the site of the first English settlement on the North American continent.

The Visitor's Center displayed a number of reproductions of drawing and painting made during the time of settlement. Many of these drawings hung in a room that was once a part of Heronden Hall in England around the 1580s. Well-to-do English lived in homes much like this one so well preserved; wood paneled and a colorfully decorated ceiling. A far cry from the first Indian settlement encountered near Roanoke Island of the same time period.

The subjects for the next blog will be New Bern, North Carolina and Christmas the family at Sneads Ferry. Upcoming blogs will include Mytle Beach, South Carolina on New Years Eve and the largest bonfire I have witnessed, two visits to a delightful sculpture garden and zoo called Brookgreen Gardens, and Pawleys Island. Tomorrow, we head for the charming southern city of Charleston, South Carolina, where we plan to stay for a full week exploring its rich history, museums, architecture and culture. I will end with this picture of a sunset over New Berne. We arrived just in the nick of time to catch the site.