The final leg

The last leg of our trip was from Corolla, NC home to Rye. 

Seemingly, it took us hours to get off the barrier island.  Campbell, as you might have noticed in pictures in earlier posts, had a run-in with a pool wall in Maui.  She really scrapped her face up and to keep the scarring to a minimum, we tried to keep the injury from sun as much as possible.  So we were in search of Zinka, a surfers' sunscreen with a high zinc oxide content which we figured would be easier to find in the Outer Banks than in Westchester County.  Thus, we stopped a few times looking for a very specific item at a handful of surf shops on the way off the barrier island.  

Also, given the eight hour drive ahead of us, I am diligently on the lookout for a coffee shop with easy entry and easy exit.  Meanwhile, during this meandering trip down the island the kids, with the acquiescence of Mom, were auguring for a hermit crab as a pet/memento of their  visit to the Outer Banks.  I was skeptical.  The kids have persistently argued for pets of different persuasions.  But there has always been a general lack of follow-through after obtaining one from fish to rabbits.  Twiggy essentially becomes the caretaker for another animal on top of the five others (1 husband, 3 kids and a rabbit) she looks after now.

Anyway, we keep driving south toward the bridge.  When I finally spot a coffee shop, it happens to be next door to a Super Wings, a ubiquitous, somewhat cheesy beach/vacation/t-shirt provisioner on the Outer Banks, which was selling everything (I mean everything, including hermit crabs, hermit crab enclosures, and hermit crab food) at 50% off, given it was literally (as Joe Biden would say) the end of the season.  

Campbell outside Super Wings

I am having no part of this.  I will not participate in the decision because, frankly, there is no upside for me in weighing in.  If Twiggy decides its OK, then its OK by me since she will inevitably be the caretaker.  So we pull into the coffee shop parking lot and Twiggy runs into get coffee.  When she comes back, we exchange glances and she heads next door to Super Wings (note to the Brown kids in the future: your mother is a softie.  She has a great heart) to get a hermit crab.  Twiggy and the kids all join in to pick out the shell (its like a Winnebago for the creatures of the sea -- you pick out a hand-painted shell, personalized enclosure, etc) for the creature.  I wait in the car.  

The drive for the next few hours is interspersed with talk about what the new pet's name should be: "Kermit the crab", "Shelly", something Hawaiian, "Mr. Krabs", etc.....Then, Reagan asks, "Do hermit crabs molt?"  "Why?", Twiggy and I ask.  "Because there is a crab claw in the scallop shell we put the crab food on at bottom of the cage."  Somehow before we hit the Maryland border our newly acquired crab has lost an appendage....maybe that is what they meant by 50% off.  It was dead before it was named.

Anyway, we drive up the eastern seaboard on a clear and windy day.  We go up the coastal route across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, through the DelMarVa peninsula,  Delaware, New Jersey and eventually back to Westchester County, NY.  We arrive in Rye around 7:30.  The kids suddenly turn sad...which I view as a good thing...not that they are sad, but that they are sad that the adventure is ending.  The car gets quiet and gloomy.

We make our way to the Roadhouse, just down the street from our house and the place where we were initially headed for dinner when we decided to leave early for our epic adventure.  So the end of the adventure was the place where we started.  Furthermore, the appropriateness of the name is not lost upon us and are all happy that this is the place where we decide to have our final repast of the journey.  

We came home on day 46, to a house full of spiderwebs and with just a weekend to get ready for the beginning of the school year.  If I could have (i.e., if I had won that North Carolina Powerball), I would have continued driving.