Kitty Hawk

Tropical Storm Barry.....

Well here we are at Kitty Hawk NC at the beach. We had an uneventful trip down on Saturday, and it didn’t start raining till Saturday night. I drove my father’s car and Vickie drove the Tahoe with her mother. The place we are staying is quite nice, and other than heart attack stairs getting to the top floor (where the kitchen and living room are) we really like it. I thought my ticker was going to explode before we got all the stuff from the car up to the kitchen. (I brought quite a bit of food from home, to save going to the grocery store all the time. And anyone who knows me knows when I catch something un-perishable on a good sale, I stock up. So I raided my pantry to the tune of a couple big plastic tubs and my freezer for a cooler full.) As usual, something interesting happened on the trip down: I overheard a guy talking on a cell phone about "a storm coming up the coast" I didn’t think any more about it, until it started raining like a cow peeing on a flat rock Saturday ni ght. This place does not have gutters, and the rain was running off the roof like someone was hosing it down with a fire hose. I was busy hoping it was raining at home. I never turned on the news and then Sunday, it was still raining hard, and the surf was pretty severe. I thought to myself, what a storm. Then today, Lorayne, Vickie’s mother told me the whole thing had been a named tropical storm. Shows you what I know. I just thought it was raining quite a bit. Today she showed me where The Weather Channel was on the TV, and we watched the talking heads yammer about the "major storm". I must admit yesterday morning when it was raining so hard we couldn’t see out the windows, I started looking for Jim Cantorini out in the yard doing a live report. But leave it to Wes to be on a barrier island in a tropical storm and not even know it.

Today (Monday) weather is beautiful. It stopped raining about 5:15 am. This afternoon it is hot and all the puddles are gone. Yesterday during a lull in the storm, (sun actually came out) we walked down to the beach and stuck our ankles in the water. It was really cold (like 67 ° ). This morning, we went down to the cottage where my Mom and Dad are staying with some of my kin on my mother’s side. I got to see and meet some of my various cousins (1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th) their spouses etc. It was quite interesting, and I found we had quite a few things in common. Miss Vickie, as usual, acted like she had known them all her life. This afternoon, we spent some time putting new line on an ocean type-fishing pole I’ve never used. Tomorrow I’m going fishing on the Avalon Pier with my Dad, ought to be a new adventure. Last time I can remember doing it (fishing on a pier with Dad) would be about 1958 here in Kitty H awk. First time I can remember them bringing us to Kitty Hawk was when we lived in Pittsburgh, and we came down in Dad’s 54 Chevy and it took two days. Rest of the afternoon I think will be spent by the pool with some adult beverages. More later.

Wes