Cape Hatteras National Seashore is much less crowded and populated than the northern portion of the Outer Banks.
After a few miles, we passed the Bodie Island Lighthouse we had seen on Friday.
A little further south we crossed the Oregon Inlet.
As we looked to the west, we could see that some people had pulled their boat up on a nearby sand bar and were enjoying the nice weather.
After crossing the Oregon Inlet, we entered the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge (NWR)...
and could see this old life-saving station off to the east.
As we drove through the Pea Island NWR, the sand dunes came even closer to the east side of the road...
and there were marshes, lagoons, and beautiful yellow flowers to the east.
As we drove out of the Pea Island NWR, we entered the town of Rodanthe...
...and we spotted the house that was used in the film Nights in Rodanthe based on the book by Nicholas Sparks.
Rodanthe, Waves, and Salvo, the three towns south of Pea Island NWR, appear to maybe have been harder hit in recent years by hurricanes. Several of the businesses like this old go-cart track have never re-opened.
When you look at a map or GPS of Hatteras Island and the southern portion of the Outer Banks, it is a thin strip of land surrounded by water. I expected to be able to see both the ocean to the east and the Pamlico Sound to the west as we traveled down NC 12,
but most of the time it looked like this.
As we got closer to Cape Hatteras, we could see the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in the distance.
We drove through the towns of Buxton, Frisco and then finally reached our campground: Hatteras Sands RV Resort.
Most of the Virginia and NC schools don't let out for summer break until after the end of this week. I think the campground will be fairly deserted this week giving us a nice view of the nearby canal.
After getting the camper set up and eating some lunch, we drove around the town of Hatteras which took about 2 minutes (if that long) and then parked at a beach access and walked over to the beach.
There were several people at the beach but it wasn't too crowded...
and the water was clear and blue.
We looked for some shark teeth and may have found a couple but are not sure. There were also a lot of shells here. The shells and shell pieces were all different colors and many had beautiful designs on them.
Most of the shell pieces had been tumbled smooth by force of the Atlantic Ocean waves.
After we got back from the beach, we sat outside and enjoyed the nice weather and scenery for a little while and then walked around the campground and talked with some fellow RVers.
For dinner, we had a salad and a Lean Cuisine-type dinner served up with a side of beautiful sunset. :)
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