The kids and I drove 1.5 hours south to see the Wright Brothers Memorial at Kitty Hawk, NC. It was fantastic. Ever since Dave and I listened to David McCullough’s book about the brothers in 2011 (I totally remember the date because we were doing P90X while listening, haha) I have been interested in visiting this site. Orville and Wilbur were super intelligent, loved to learn and solve problems, and were incredibly determined. I love that their parents valued teaching them how to learn over teaching them what to learn. After their first successful flight in 1903 it was only 66 years later that Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon! We happened to arrive at the memorial just in time for a half-hour ranger talk, which was perfect.
A reproduction of the flyer that finally proved flight was possible.
(The real one is in DC at the Air & Space Museum.)
This stone is where the first flight landed, after just 12 seconds in the air. On this particular day the brothers made 4 successful flights, each one longer than the one before. The 4 markers in the photo above identify how far apart each landing was. (They had planned to do a 5th flight that day but while they were warming up indoors, the flyer caught a gust of air and was crumpled.)
This memorial was placed in 1928, on the 25th anniversary of the first successful flight. I’ve seen a photo of Amelia Earhart standing in front of this marker the day it was dedicated, which I think is just so cool.
This memorial says around the base, in part, “…conceived by genius, achieved by dauntless resolution and unconquerable faith.”
After visiting the memorial we had to touch the Atlantic Ocean (the big girls don’t remember doing it and the 3 little ones never have!) so we grabbed a quick lunch, ate in the van, and then headed out to the beach.
The beach sorta looked dingy after the glorious Destin beaches, I’ll be honest (is my ability to appreciate beaches ruined forever?), but it was still pretty awesome.
The shells here are so much bigger, colorful, and more varied than the ones in Destin.
This beautiful babe fell and bonked her forehead on the concrete running down the Wright Brother’s Memorial. It looked pretty awful but luckily didn’t seem to be too serious.
We topped off our trip to the Outer Banks with milkshakes.
It was a pretty fantastic day, if I do say so myself.
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