Day 4

Robert and I started this lovely day taking an early morning walk on the beach.  It wasn't quite a sunrise walk, but early enough the boys didn't want to join us.  

Which suited us just fine.

It was quite lovely.

When we got back, we packed the boys up and took them to the Wright Brothers National Park.  I have to share a little secret.  The Wright Brother Museum in really wonderful.  It has a fantastic indoor display with videos and a giant replica of the first plane.  The outside part of the park is equally impressive.  They show where everything was made, and they have remade those sheds with complete accuracy to the time period.  They have marked out the exact markers of each attempt and have a pretty awesome monument set up for the brothers at the top of the hill.

Like I said.  It's fantastic. 

Except.  It's also cursed.  You don't believe me?  Well, it is.  We have now gone to the park two times.  The first time was about 4 years ago when the twins graduated from high school and we were moving to West Virginia.  We ha met up with Lora and her family to rent a house at the Outer Banks and we took one of our days to go to the Wright Brothers museum.  Lora's family did not, in fact, suffer the curse, but I swear to you, the moment we walked into that park, Emmett turned into a little demon.  He was moody, sulky and basically refused to walk.

Jason was equally affected.

I hated the experience so much.  Every step was torture and full of so many complaints, threats, tantrum and whines that I wanted to jump into that plane replica and fly as far off as it would take me.  (I believe that would have been 852 feet.)  It was just terrible.

Now, four years later, I thought that it just might have been a bad day.  I was actually very excited to head back and see all the things that the first set of tantrums didn't allow for.

It was not to be.

The moment that Emmett saw that there were 'learning' stations (all the cool info they have on the lives of the Wright brothers and their inventions) he started storming around the place, giving dagger glares at any attempt to include him.

He even 'hated' seeing the replica, which, like I said, is really cool.

Notice anyone not in this photo?  He was busy siting on the floor in sulky anger.

This was our walk up to the monument. It was pretty tortuous.

By the time we got there, Jason had joined in the prevailing attitude of angry, whiny sulking, and he gave up walking altogether.  And if we are going to be honest...by the time we got to the top, I also turned into a little devil.  Looking over that beautiful sight, under the inspiring monument, I was complete done with those rotten boys.  I was grumpy and snide and completely mean to everyone around me.

Now there are zero of our people in the photos. 

I think that Robert was the only one not affected by the curse.  I marched back down the monument by myself.  Jason trudged down by himself.  And Emmett stomped down by himself.  I think Robert split his time from walking back and forth between the two boys.

I don't think I'll go back.

On our way out there was a fun little park.  Jason had recovered from the curse long enough to go out and check it out.

By the late afternoon, the curse had mostly worn off, and we were able to have a pretty ok time back out on the beach, flying our own kites.

There may have been some lingering  'angry' flying by Emmett, but the rest of us were back to our old, peppy selves.

The wind was perfect for flying.

Later that evening, Robert and Emmett went on a little private trip to the sound where they were able to catch and release a little crab.  That was just what Emmett needed to bring  him back to us.