Outer Banks - Day 3 (Jockey's Ridge)

On Wednesday, we packed up, checked out of the hotel, and got a quick breakfast before heading over to Jockey's Ridge State Park.  It was still windy but finally just normal windy.  And though it was mainly overcast, the sun was starting to peak through a little bit.  Yeah!

Jockey's Ridge is the tallest natural sand dune system in the Eastern United States.  Its height varies from 80 to 100 feet, depending on weather conditions.  Shifting maritime winds blow billions of grains of sand in different directions, constantly changing both the shape and size of the dune.  Why doesn't the sand blow away?  In the winter, the winds usually blow out of the northeast and in the summer out of the southwest; therefore, the sand is constantly blown back and forth.

We started off our morning by hiking the 1 1/2 mile Tracks in the Sand trail.  The trail goes along the edge of the large dune area and leads to Roanoke Sound.  Rylan actually hiked a descent amount before getting Brian to carry him.  Carter did awesome and hiked the whole way again.

We started the hike by going up a huge hill.

Even though they complain some and want to be carried, the boys are really into hiking right now.  They ask to go (even Rylan) all the time.

A tried to get a few good pictures of the sand ...

Time for a break and a snack for the boys (and one of the few pictures with me in it!) ...

A few more pictures of the sand :)

Almost to the sound ...

When we got down to the sound, we took a break and played in the sand for a bit.  We had the area all to ourselves (we had only seen one other family at the beginning of our hike).  The wasn't much wind back here and it was so quiet - we could have stayed there forever.

We headed back through some vegetation to the dunes.

I never got a good picture of the boys together.  They didn't want to look at me, and when they did, there were only grumpy faces for me.

But I did get a pretty good group shot of all my guys :)

More hiking ...

When we got back to where most people hang out on the dunes, I jogged back to our car and got our sand toys.  We spent a long time digging and making sand castles and molds.  Carter finally got his fill of playing in the sand!

After awhile, we walked up to the top of the huge dunes (Carter is way ahead of us in the picture below).

Rylan took some convincing to not be carried again, but being behind Carter and me led to some good pictures of Rylan and Brian!

A look back up the dune (it got pretty crowded, I can't imagine what summer is like!).

And a couple of pictures of me and our 4-year-old (we are constantly reminded of this right now!).

We had a lot of fun exploring Jockey's Ridge.  I would highly recommend the Tracks in the Sand trail as it allowed us to see different areas of the park and also get some time area from crowds!