Digging out from under total insanity, here I am again.

I have been on hiatus from what feels like everything. I think in a sense I'm lonely, maybe doing too much of things I don't really want to do for reasons I don't really understand. I'm really busy, but feeling pretty alone at the same time. Maybe I'm simply moving too fast. Maybe everyone I know is moving too fast. Maybe we all need to slow down. Who knows.

We just got back from a week in the village of Hatteras on Hatteras Island on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. This is the second time we have stayed in Hatteras--the first was three years ago at this same time of year. And there was a lot in common between these two trips. Rain and gale force winds, a television full of warnings about rip tides that kept us from the water for days. Not that you'd want to go in while it's in the 40s and 50s in the air, not to mention the water. Well, amend that. Actually, kids will go in just about anything, if given permission.

The first trip we took to Hatteras was salvaged by the miracle of letterboxing. There were at least 25 letterboxes back in 2006 in the Hatteras Island/Ocracoke area. Though it was cold and we were underdressed, we did get out and about into areas we never would have seen without a list of vague clues to guide us. We learned about and hiked through maritime forests with trees stunted by the salt wind we were so familiar with firsthand. We saw at least 5 snakes in 5 different environments--historic graveyards full of downed sailors, hollow trees in the Buxton Woods, in the Pamlico Sound, on a forested trail on Ocracoke, and guarding a letterbox with its life.

Unfortunately, this year when we were looking for an afternoon activity, we discovered that the placers of many of the letterboxes on Hatteras had made most of them private or by invitation only. This seems to me to violate the spirit of the communal activity of letterboxing, open to all. We did attempt to revisit one that had become overgrown, so the trail was no longer visible, but we gave up on it in deference to the snakes who doubtless called the spot home. While there, we visited the "Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum," which is fascinating and full of information about the dangerous shoals and long history of warfare and shipwreck off the Atlantic Coast. We also had fun poking through another old graveyard tucked into a condo and giant sound-house community linked to a popular shopping area by a boardwalk over a vibrant salt marsh and found a letterbox under the fourth step down off a gazebo.

Finally, on the fifth day of our trip, things were looking up in the weather. It was sunny. Our day on Ocracoke, always a favorite, ended in drizzle turning to genuine rain, which was a shame since we had just unloaded our bikes and were ready to head out into the nether reaches of a very cute place. We managed to visit a few shops (to get some blessed relief from being pelted by wetness). On the plus side, we found a super coffee shop that had perfect climbable trees, and Walter amused the many guests sitting out under the trees with his tree-shimmying skills. Rutledge, of course, made friends with many, many dogs, some of whom were searching for another friend and some of whom were offended by very short people who aren't always gentle. There were the two French Bulldogs at lunch at the seafood restaurant, wearing their life preservers because this breed can't swim. There were the two dachshunds on the beach who didn't like children. And the hyper beagle puppy who came by shortly afterward. Then there were the coarse-haired Portugeuse Water Dogs. And the chihuahua on the sound when we semi-trespassed onto land for sale on the sound. The westie on the way to the pizza place. While on Ocracoke, we also shopped at our favorite little shell and trinket store, visited the ponies descended from the ones supposedly brought on a Spanish ship way back when, and climbed the trees in the cemetery and read the names of the British who perished in an attack by a German U-Boat during World War II.

On my final day there, it was sunny, and we were able to fly the very cool kites we bought on the second day of the trip, the kites that didn't appreciate the 35 mph gusts from the early part of the week. Ollie had a red, white, and blue airplane which, when all is told, was really a delta in disguise, Walter had a Red Baron plane, and Frances had a poison dart frog on a classic diamond. We got sunburned without realizing it. The older three kids played for hours in a rather cold ocean that most sane people stayed out of. We got mahi-mahi, steamed shrimp, and bay scallops right from a local boat. And we played yet more Set, a game that figured very strongly in this vacation. We did almost all of a 550 piece puzzle (no, I haven't forgiven the others for not putting in the last 25 pieces of plain blue sky that I left off when I went to bed after midnight).

Leaving was the hard part. I had to physically peel myself away. It was as if a magnet was holding me back. The day was gorgeous, the weather warm, and I wanted more than anything in the world to (a) become very irresponsible. I had volunteered a long time back to organize the used curriculum sale at a statewide homeschooling conference. Suddenly, I wanted to just flake out, to not be where I was supposed to, to say that my mental health was such that I just *had* to stay at the beach. And that made me kind of slow getting out. It felt like there was lead in my feet keeping them from pushing the gas pedal of the car. As I was going over the bridge off the Outer Banks, Margaritaville came on. I'll admit, this isn't a song that I have ever completely understood. But at this moment, the appeal was undeniable. The life of just kicking back, shirking all responsibility to anyone else, and just drinking for the rest of the day, week, maybe month or year was calling my name. But I kept driving. For the (b) above, I also thought about just driving right on past the conference and on across the country. See "being irresponsible" above.

But I went to the conference, the book sale was successful. I wish I could have seen more of the conference itself, which i didn't feel like I experienced because I spent more or less the entire time except for a brief run for lunch and an hour out for one session on a topic that wasn't all that pertinent to me (preparing high school transcripts). But overall, it was a good experience. Just not as good as the beach would have been.

Oh, and I'd be remiss not to mention our kayaking adventure. We were eco-explorers. The Outer Banks is full of these "Eco Tours" by kayak--whatever that really means. We had brought our semi-new kayak that we bought last fall and were determined to use it. Considering the crazy wind and choppy seas, it wasn't much of a possibility until close to the end of our trip. On a bikeride with the kids (which, like everything else, involved a lot of graveyard with a wide variety of years on the stones), I had scoped out a good place to park and put in our boat in a salt marsh area. When we went back a few days later to show it to Kerry, wouldn't you know it...there was a big old snake slithering through the water. I take these things as signs! So we decided, on our last night, to go out to the Sound and put in at a public access. I was pretty sure I had seen kiteboarders here at one point (almost no one was out this week!), but I hadn't seen any other kayaks there. Now I know why. When I say shallow, I mean shallow! Ollie and I loaded up with our life jackets and were pushed out, and about a minute later we ran aground in water so shallow that Ollie had to push me and the boat away. Then Walter walked out about 500 feet and helped us to get back in; he was in water up to his ankles. Meanwhile, being Walter, he was also collecting more wildlife than the aquarium sponsored class we skipped could ever have expected. By the time we left, he had clams, multiple hermit crabs, had seen a rabbit, and who knows what else he picked up off the bottom. No matter how far we paddled out, it was still shallow, shallow, shallow, and getting dark. And it required a lot of effort to drag the kayak across the sandy bottom and we didn't want to be stuck too far from home. So that was the end of our eco-tour.

All in all, it wasn't enough vacation. We did a lot of at-home things--played a lot of Set, Monopoly, chess, mancala, that dreadful little word game from Cranium that Rutledge plays (you fish for letters with a little rod and a totally useless plastic polar bear sits on a piece of cardboard watching), Go Fish, Uno. We read a Nancy Drew novel. But the beach time wasn't enough. I needed more, longer, and warmer. I was plotting my return, maybe spontaneous, for a night, with a tent, as I left. Who knows, maybe I will follow through!