Cape Hatteras

The Outer Banks. When I look at the Rand McNally Road Atlas I never know what to expect of new places especially when I combine the little line of green on the map with what is in my patchwork memory-- like PBS documentaries on former slave community, and childhood books, like Misty (wild pony) of Chincoteague …
We are at Cape Hatteras, the barber shop lighthouse just beyond us. The wind, sand and cold create the environment Michael is processing veggie oil in outside the back bumper. I type to the drone of the inverter yet again. The solar panels are giving 3.5 amps right now, overcast. This is the unofficial midpoint of our voyage—9000 miles and 30 veggie processings for Michael, the determined.
Last night we followed our bliss onto the beach. Carrying a full truck load of water, biodiesel, and veggie oil we were the largest extravaganza amongst the fisher people and luckily we floated the sand just fine. (These guys have big late model trucks outfitted with multiple poles, like pipe organs or medals, sticking vertically up on their front bumpers and sometimes on the back too. They don’t drink, chat, or even sit down. They “man” their poles and stare to sea. Their ranks stay til after dark and are back before dawn.) The rule seems to be; as long as you have a “pole in the water” the National Park Service can’t bug you about camping so we chanced it, having only hiking poles…
The night was like an intersection in the middle of the “nowhere home” theme of the trip. I couldn’t sleep for fear of missing the “rosy fingers of dawn” but also because I expected, in some fear based part of myself, to be sucked into the sea by a tsunami wave or by the high tide (of which we sat maybe 20 feet above with our front tires, poised for our fate.) One part of my dream self saw us taking off like a turtle to fly beneath the waters like an animated caricature of ourselves, the other saw one more voyager wreck in Davy Jones’s locker here on the shifting sands of North Carolina’s Outer Bank, among the shells and debris that the fishermen ignore at their feet. (We never saw a fish be caught in our 12+ hours amongst them.)
P.S. I have narrowed my garbage collecting to Styrofoam, plastic and the ribbon tails of balloons or other things birds might tangle in. Please avoid the use of these products in the interest of my sanity and the health of all species.