State

REMEMBER: Vacation Trips Down The Outer Banks Getting there* certainly was nut half the* fun — but being there was heaven. By JACK GOODWIN PART I Few of the many visitors crossing the spectacular bridge over Oregon Inlet and driving down the smooth, straight highway that goes from tip to tip of Cape Hatteras can have any inkling of what a trip to Cape Hatteras was like before the highways and bridge were built. It was always an adventurous, and sometimes a frightening, experience, if one went by motorcar. We always tried to be at Whalebone Station at Nags Head early in the morning, for that was where one left the hardsurfaced roads, filled the gas tank, and partially deflated the tires as preparation for driving through the sand. Mrs. Neva Midgett, Whalebone's proprietor, would advise the grownups on tide and road conditions while we children had a soft drink and admired the great whale skeleton that gave the station its name. Then, with Mrs. Midgettt waving goodbye and wishing us luck, we would set off following the tracks through the sand of those who had gone before us. The first destination was the Oregon Inlet ferry. We always hoped that "Tobc" Tillctt would be captaining the THE STATE. MAY IMS ferry as he was a family friend and always had news of the Island. If wc reached the ferry w ithout getting stuck in the sand, we considered ourselves lucky, for getting stuck was a regular part of the trip. The ferries were small and slow, but wc didn't care as long as they got us across the inlet. Sometimes the Inlet was rough, but we always made it across without mishap. Once, the ferry had departed just a few minutes before we got to the Inlet, but "Tobc" recog¬ nized us. turned the ferry around, and came back for us — a mark of signal honor. From the south side of the Inlet, if the ocean tide was ebbing, we would some¬ times drive down the Wash — the (usually) hard-packed sand on the occanfront where the great waves had been breaking a short time before. Cars could go relatively fast on the Wash and there was less danger of getting stuck than when driving through the soft dry sand of the upper beach, but there was always the danger of quicksand. This quicksand was not the type that swal¬ lowed one up as pictured so often in Hollywood movies, but was a deceptive looking mixture of soft sand and water that usually indicated the site of a buried shipw'reck in which a car would sink slowly, but steadily. We usually went from our home in Norfolk. Virginia, to Cape Hatteras several times a year, and about once a year we would get caught in the quick¬ sand on the Wash, often as the tide was turning. It was always a frightening ex¬ perience. Wc could choose to try to get out of the car and make it to hard sand or else to sit in the car as it slowly sank into the sand. Even though wc knew that the Coast Guard would doubtless come to our rescue, there was always a gnawing doubt in the back of our minds that this might be the one time when the Coast Guard wouldn't appear. But appear they always did. All the Coast Guard stations along the length of the island had continuously manned