Coming back from Bodie Island, we stopped in at Jockey's Ridge to see the dunes again and pose for our only group photo of the trip. Scott had been begging to go back ever since he faceplanted there on our Day #3 visit. Only, this time it wasn't Scott who wiped out.
We saw some other people running down one of the steep dunes and Tay decided that he and I should have a race. As we climbed up the hill, I confessed that I had reservations about running down that hill at top speed. Tay got the drop on me from the starting line and built his lead as we went. Down below, the girls let the video camera roll and we came flying down at them. The slopes ends quite abruptly, and when Tay hit the level ground at the bottom his knees buckled and he hammered his face into the ground, plowing his glasses deep into the sand. The glasses managed to plow a few rows in his forehead on their way down -- but they didn't break.
If you watch the video in slow motion (which we did many times), then you can see that he got his hands out in front of him to break his fall, but he was going so fast that he quickly left them behind and his face was all on its own. He noted that his forearm was fairly sore: "Almost like a break" -- and he has broken his arm enough times to know what that feels like.
He was bloodied, sore and coated with sand, but there was nothing broken. Bystanders broke into spontaneous applause. Not only that, we ended up making money on the event. No, the spectators didn't make charity donations. Instead, the day after I uploaded the video to YouTube, I received an offer from a YouTube channel operator to license the video for use in their weekly compilation of "fail" videos for a 3-figure fee. I asked my sister-in-law if she was in favour of accepting the offer. She heartily agreed, although Tay had his reservations. We netted the amount off the total bill for our vacation rental. Thanks Tay!
We dined on delicious burgers and slushies from Kill Devil's Frozen Custard & Beach Fries and headed back home. We promised the kids that if they had their baths quickly and got right into their jammies then we could have fireworks.
We capped off this very successful final day with a few rounds of Dominion, where I finally snatched victory and etched my name in the box-top. All that was left was to clean up, pack our things and plan one final pancake breakfast. Good-bye North Carolina! We love your pancakes!
When we were on the plane trip home Scott sighed and said, "I miss Ava already." For the next week afterwards Katie kept saying, "I want to go back to Ava's house." Katie also began calling her young cousin Adalia by Ava for several days. How fun that we got to spend so much time together.
1 comment:
A great series of posts! I have been waiting to see these. We had a fantastic time as well. Ava still asks to see her "new friends". And sadly, those two trips have turned into a brown tooth. At least she can say it happened somewhere cool.
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