Walking, Biking & Bears

After breakfast this morning, we decided to get some exercise in.  We needed it after 3 days in a row of eating delicious hamburgers at Burger Burger!

We first drove to the National Wildlife Refuges (NWR) Visitor Center in Manteo to get some information about the Alligator River NWR.  The Visitor Center is a very new facility with lots of exhibits and films regarding wildlife and National Wildlife Refuges in the southeast.  The Alligator River NWR is home to black bears, alligators and very rare red wolves.  We got a map of the Alligator River NWR and then drove over to Fort Raleigh and parked the car to begin our walk.

Don't we look like we are so happy and excited to be walking?  :)

Several flowers were in bloom along the trail.  I really liked these red and yellow daylilies...

...and these purple flowers.

The only wildlife we saw along the trail was the occasional squirrel.

We did pass these sheep that were grazing near this windmill on the Island Farm.

Since the Outer Banks didn't have much in the way of running water, early settlers built windmills to use for grinding wheat and corn and for pumping water.  The Island Farm is a "living history site" where visitors can see what life was like back in the 1800's.

Today was a very sunny and warm day.

We really appreciated the shady parts of the walking trail.

I forgot to wear my pedometer.  Usually, it takes us around 90 minutes to walk 10,000 steps so Chuck just timed us.  After walking 45 minutes down the walking trail, we turned around and walked back.  After we got back to the car, we drank some water and then got on our bikes.  We rode to where we had walked to on the trail which was 2.6 miles which meant our round trip walking was 5.2 miles.  We then rode our bikes further for a total of ten miles round trip.  I think we worked off those hamburgers and then some!  :)

Back at Fort Raleigh where we had parked the car, I noticed this very big tree growing sideways out of the ground.  I wonder how old it is and how many hurricanes it has lived through.  We read somewhere that hurricanes or tropical storms occur somewhere in or around the Outer Banks every 1.33 years!  Maybe that's why the tree is growing sideways.  :)

After getting back to the motorhome, we decided to skip lunch and have "lupper" at Captain George's. After all we did just walk 5.2 miles and bike 10 miles!  :)  A fellow camper we talked with at Forest Lake Campground told us about Captain George's and how the food there is so good.  You could order the buffet or off the menu.  Because this was our first time, we went for the buffet which included all-you-can-eat crab legs.

The food was very good and, of course, we ate too much; but we won't be doing a buffet again for a very long time.  In fact, it's going to be back to just salads for supper for us for a while.

Since it was still daylight when we got back home, we decided to drive to the Alligator River NWR and see if we could find some bears.  The "driving trail" is gravel...

and takes you through farmlands and by canals.

We had been riding for about 30 minutes and had not seen or heard any wildlife except the big horseflies buzzing around the car.  

We turned around at the end of the "driving trail" and just about the time I was about to give up, eagle-eye Chuck spotted a bear.

We were a long ways away from the bear but we were able to see him stand up and then start walking on all fours along a ditch next to a road in the distance.

We drove a little further and Chuck spotted this smaller bear.

I spotted this raccoon.  :)

As we drove on a little further, he spotted the 3rd bear but this guy was a little closer.

We watched him (or her) for several minutes and I was able to take some videos.  You can hear the horseflies buzzing around the car in the video.  Makes you feel like you are right there swatting with us!  :)

Pretty cool!  We didn't see any red wolves (but didn't really expect to).  We didn't see any alligators either.  But we saw 3 black bears!!  I'd say our wildlife adventure for the day was a success!  :)