OBX - Day 2

Yes, I’m way behind on my blogging, so let’s just pretend it’s circa Monday, May 25 (Memorial Day), and this post will make a lot more sense….

Day 2 in the Outer Banks started out with a coffee, toast, a banana, and the Washington Post on the 3rd floor deck overlooking a sand dune, and just beyond, the Atlantic Ocean. After polishing off breakfast and reading the paper for a good hour or so, I decided it was time to hit the beach.

I changed into a t-shirt, shorts and flip flops, and ran into Uncle Bruce’s mom at the door, so I asked her if she wanted to come along, which she did. Beth and I probably walked about 3 miles or so. The weather was gorgeous (slightly cool when the cloud cover rolled in, just a little warm when the sun was out), and there weren’t that many people on the beach as we headed north on the beach towards Buck Island. BI, for the OBX uninitiated, is another one of those exclusive oceanside communities with enormous houses with their own private walkways to the beach. The houses were pretty distracting, so we didn’t turn around and head south until we realized that our ankles were throbbing quite a bit from all the shifting of weight on the sand.

When we got back to the house, the “kids” were just getting up and heading to the beach. I say kids, but that would be my 25 year old cousin, her 25 year old boyfriend, my cousin’s 24 year old cousin, and her 39 year old boyfriend (hmm…reminds me of Sesame Street…one of these things is not like the others…). While they were at the beach, I took some time to check email, check out the library (which consisted of an astonishing variety of trashy romance novels, cookbooks, and Oprah book of the month club selections…all disappointing), and just chatting with my aunt. When Alex and Chris got back, the three of us went out for lunch. We went to The Tomato Patch, which is one of the restaurants that was there when my family first went to OBX about 20 years ago. After a long leisurely lunch, where Alex bitched about school, and I bitched about work, and we both bitched about our crazy family, we decided to go to Bacchus for the daily afternoon wine tasting. I felt bad for Chris, because Alex and I spent all of lunch reminiscing and getting him up to speed on the insanity that is the Liu family holiday meal (the Asian version of a Walker family meal, for those of you who watch Brothers and Sisters). The wine tasting was a pretty good deal – 6 wines for $5 – and pretty tasty too. Alex bought a couple of bottles from the tasting, and then we hit the Brew Thru for margarita mix. BT is another OBX novelty that I’ve never seen outside of the beach which consists of you driving your car into this car wash-type building, only instead of getting sprayed with soap, a very helpful stoner/hippie type comes over, asks you what type of beverage you want, hands it to you, and you’re on your way. Drinking and driving = bad? Not in the OBX. With beverages in hand, we headed back to the house to help with dinner preparations.

My aunt and uncle are foodies. Dinner does not consist of whatever is a) not fuzzy/smelly/about to hatch or b) ready to make in 2 minutes. They buy the good stuff and take their time preparing everything so it comes out right. So, as they made fresh guacamole for the troops to munch on, I helped myself to a margarita…or 4. My uncle at one point turned around and said that I’d gotten some sun (damn Asian glow). I responded with yes, I did…and in related news, the sun has been renamed Jose Cuervo. Dinner was served at exactly 6PM and consisted of fresh salad, corn on the cob, fresh bread and Irish butter, Angus steaks, and pasta with lobster and butter sauce. Yum!! The food was delicious, and since most of us were too stuffed to do anything else, we watched a Star Wars marathon on Spike for the rest of the night.