Overcast - Visit to Wright Brothers Memorial

Good night's sleep in our new room. Need to speak to the breakfast here at this Comfort Inn – good but identical every day. Scrambled eggs, bacon or sausage, toast, muffins, bagels, cereal, waffles. Lots of choices but exactly the same everyday. Usually they alternate the hot offerings occasionally. Maybe tomorrow we will go across the street to Millers – we got a coupon for breakfast when we ate there the first night.  Cloudy but looks like it might clear up later in the day. Jane spent the morning watching the sea from the balcony and writing the blog through today. Even transferred the photos such as they are.

We are off to the Wright Brothers Memorial. We looked for somewhere for a quick lunch as we drove up the main drag. We stopped at Chili Peppers because there were lots of cars in the parking lot. It was a good sign as it usually is – Jane had a Taco Salad and Ben had She Crab Bisque. Both were above average and very tasty. 

 We then headed a few miles down the road to the Wright Brothers Memorial. We have been here at least twice before – once probably after senior year in High School when Jane, Margaret and Steve came with the Harris family for a week. Then we also came maybe 10 years ago on a trip here but the visitor center was in a tent. Very nice visitor center now and great exhibits. 

 Ben may have told this story before, but I only remembered the part about his dad getting a very bad foot infection from kicking a crab… today I got to hear the rest of the story. When Ben’s family first came to Nags Head it was in late 1940’s or early 1950’s – would need to drag out his mother’s books to know for sure. Anyway, one of the days they had a fishing guide for a day – his name was Johnny Moore. This guide who was probably in his 50’s at the time had been present at the first flight of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk. Ben recalls meeting him but not much else as he would have been 10-12 years old. About the age of Johnny when he was at the first flight in 1903. Sure enough, his name is in the materials at the memorial! So, I know someone who met someone who was at the first flight! Nice exhibits. Sun finally out so I got some decent photos.

Photo of first flight

The model inside the Visitor Center

The memorial 

Part of Sculpture - this is probably Johnny Moore

The first flight

 The last ones are of the memorial sculpture done in 2003 for the Centennial Celebration. It included the 4 bystanders – one of whom was Johnny Moore. We are making the assumption he was the youngest looking of the statues. After the nice visit we headed back to the hotel, walked a bit on the beach and rested to get ready for our 5PM reservation for dinner at Collingwood Café. We had two choices for a reservation 5PM or 7:45 PM. We arrived at Collingwood Café about 5 PM and were seated promptly by a window. There are 4 dining rooms – each one had about 5-6 tables. Most 2 and 4 person in our room. So it is a fairly small restaurant. I had a salad and shrimp/scallop napoleon – sautéed in a light sherry sauce. Ben had flounder with lump crab meat in a light sauce. We don’t recall the name of sauce. Both were excellent. They brought out a fantastic dessert tray but we were way too full! It was really not much more expensive than other places we have eaten. Maybe a couple dollars – but definitely more up scale. Waitresses were all older and it seemed at least half the folks in our dining room knew the staff so they were local. We would definitely come back.   Back to the hotel and watched 4 guys surfing for about an hour.  Looks like a lot of work!

Collingwood Cafe

Shrimp and Scallops Napoleon

Flounder with Lump Crab