If you ever have the privilege of visiting the barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina (aka Outer Banks) you will most likely drive past Jockey’s Ridge. You see, there is only one main highway that travels the entire north-south route along the islands. Once you pop over the bridge and arrive in Kitty Hawk, NC (of Wright Brothers’ first flight fame) and head south, you will see what appears to be some sort of desert. This desert (located in Nags Head, NC) is Jockey’s Ridge State Park.
Rolling mountains of sand with the occasional hang glider taking flight as far as the eye can see.
It truly is a site to behold.
Here is a small snippet of the sandy expanse that I snapped summer of ’11 –
And a pic of Bob looking way super awesome 😉 during his hang gliding lesson, also summer of ’11 –
Jockey’s Ridge encompasses 420 acres and is the tallest living natural sand dune system in the Eastern United States.
As if all that doesn’t make it cool enough, the very best time to visit (in my opinion) is sunset (though sunrise is probably pretty awesome too). This year we were not only lucky enough to visit Jockey’s Ridge at sunset, but we had our fabulous photographer friend Dan with us – and he was kind enough to shoot some family pics as the sun went down. When you are on the top of a dune at Jockey’s Ridge, you can see the ocean AND the bay at once. These pictures were as the sun was setting over the bay, one muggy August evening in ’12.
