Seeing More Light

NC’s Lighthouses:

Cape Lookout and Bald Head Island

In the first installment in a series about North Carolina’s storied lighthouses, the Cape Hatteras and Currituck Island lighthouses were featured. This time, the Cape Lookout and Bald Head Island lighthouses are worth a tour through history.

The dangerous, shifting shoals of the North Carolina coastline were a constant danger to mariners and shipwrecks happened frequently. The U.S. Congress authorized a lighthouse at Cape Lookout in 1804, but the first tower was not completed until 1812. But like the original Cape Hatteras light, the Cape Lookout light was too dim to be easily seen off the coast, and ships were in more danger of running aground while looking for the light than if they just kept going until they could see one.

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Hauntings: Crystal Coast’s Most Famous Ghost

Beaufort is the 3rd oldest town in North Carolina, founded in 1709. It boasts of having once been home to the infamous pirate Blackbeard, and the locals of Beaufort’s historic district even say they know right where he lived - it’s a place called “Hammock House,” where the ill-tempered buccaneer is said to have hanged one of his 14 wives. The House also claims numerous other ghosts, including three Civil War soldiers who were murdered there and buried under the porch.

The Beaufort Ghost Walk is one of the most popular attractions in the Outer Banks, next to the lighthouses, of course. As Halloween approaches, a look at historic Beaufort and its stories of pirates, haunted houses, unexplained happenings and ghost ships is definitely called for.

The tours begin after dark and a led by professional, costumed guides who have mastered the art of spooky storytelling while showing off great material, like 300 year old cemeteries, pirate domiciles, and the scenes of some pretty hairy unexplained phenomena that seem to happen here more often than just about anywhere else. Their site is chock full of pictures taken by tourists who have enjoyed the tour, who talk about their spooky experiences and show off ghosts that appear in their photographs for no apparent reason!

Hammock House, home to Blackbeard the Pirate

Read some of their testimonials and consider treating your family to the nighttime strolling tour when you’re in the area taking in the sights (or just prospecting for Blackbeard’s fabled buried treasure on the southern tip of Ocracoke Island, anywhere on the Isles of Shoals, or possibly at Plum Point…

It may be too late to book the tour for Halloween this year, but it couldn’t hurt to check, if you’re going to be on the Crystal Coast at the end of October. Tours cost $10 per person, under 5 tour free. Reservation only, phone number at the link.

Avast, ye landlubbers! It be a spine-tingling good time!

Links:

Tour Beaufort Ghost Walk

Blackbeard Lives

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Hauntings: The Brown Mountain Lights

In the late autumn of the year the forest’s umbrella of summer green turns ten shades of red and as many hues of yellow - with some impossible combinations in between. As they fall to blanket the ground and reveal bare, spiny branches, the view opens up to reconnect the mountain earth with the sky. Right around Halloween and into November a mysterious phenomenon draws hundreds of watchers hoping to see some ghosts.

Mentioned in Cherokee legends originating as long as 800 years ago, the mysterious Brown Mountain Lights have dazzled watchers by zipping and dancing through Linville Gorge and along the Brown Mountain ridge near Morganton in Burke County, North Carolina.

They’ve been described as glowing balls of fire, bursting skyrockets, or pale, white ‘bubbles’. They”ve been seen to drift, fade and brighten, whirl like pinwheels, then dart away playfully. A short hike from a parking area along a gravel Forest Service is Wisemans View in the Pisgah National Forest.

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Treading Lightly on the Earth*

Log and Timber Frame Homes
[*ee cummings]

October 15 has been designated “Blog Action Day”, when bloggers are encouraged to write about our environment and things regular people can do to reduce their environmental footprint on the planet and help steward the environment we depend upon to sustain our lives.

Here in beautiful North Carolina we are blessed with environments so spectacular and desirable that much of our drawn income over the year comes from visitors and tourists who just can’t get enough of us! This of course can cause some environmental stress, yet we’ve done a pretty good job so far of not urbanizing ourselves into depression and not so polluting our air and water that it’s struggle just to stay alive.

Out in the rural piedmont and mountainous west there is somewhat of a ‘housing boom’ going on. Despite overpriced land and housing in many areas of the country and a ‘bubble’ that is bursting as we speak, North Carolina still offers reasonably priced land and eco-friendly houses for young families, out-of-staters seeking vacation homes, and retirees seeking peace and a connection to the earth. A key to that housing boom isn’t just the relatively low price of land, it’s the popularity of log and timber frame homes and a sizable number of eco-conscious builders operating in our state.

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Seeing The Light

NC’s Lighthouses:

Cape Hatteras and Currituck Island

North Carolina’s coastline juts well out into the Atlantic Ocean with serious attitude. It claims the distinction of owning the easternmost point in all of the United States, and catches more than its share of hurricanes and nor’easter storms.

The beautiful Cape Hatteras lighthouse is the most famous lighthouse in America, and originally sat right on that eastern most point of sand. Back in 1793 when the nation was still in its infancy, funds were released by the U.S. Congress to build a mighty lighthouse to mark the notorious Diamond Shoals sandbar, graveyard to more ships than anyone cared to count.

Diamond Shoals marks the meeting place of the two great Atlantic currents, the cold water Labrador current and the warm north-bound Gulf Stream. Their meeting creates shifting sandbars just beneath the surface, making for some very dangerous waters. Illness in the building crews delayed the completion of the lighthouse until 1803, when it was lit for the very first time. The original light consisted of 18 oil lamps with 14″ reflectors, providing a beam that could be seen from 12 miles offshore.

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The Simple Joy of Hiking

This first week of October is shaping up to be absolutely glorious in my Blue Ridge neck of the woods. Mid to high 70s in crisp, absurdly clear air during the day, low 50s to high 40s at night. Only a few leaves are turning - the sourwoods and sumacs are red-red and the beeches are already turning yellow, the high ridge line is showing signs of color too.

In the Black Mountain/Montreat/ Ridgecrest area there are a number of well-maintained trails into the high country and Mount Mitchell, at 6,684 feet the tallest mountain east of the Mississippi. These include the Old Toll Road cinder trail to Camp Alice that rises at a mellow 7% grade along the old Mount Mitchell Railway bed from just above Black Mountain, the more challenging Ridgecrest Trail that begins near the Baptist Convention Center at Ridgecrest in the Swannanoa Gap, and the Old Graphite Trail that begins at Mill Creek in the tiny settlement of Graphite at the base of the continental divide 5 miles from Old Fort.

All of these trails are convenient to the Inn on Mill Creek “Nature Lover’s Bed and Breakfast” about halfway up the mountain between Graphite and Ridgecrest. There is no better word to describe this place than “incredible.” When you wake up on a morning like this - in a place like this - the first thing that enters your mind is “yet another beautiful day!” Sometimes you’ve just got to lace up the hiking boots and head for the forest.

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