Beach Trip: Day 5 and 6 (Tuesday and Wednesday)

OOPS - I accidentally uploaded 2 days worth of photos. So this post is quite large, but worth looking at I hope.

Day 5 - Tuesday

Monday night Mike went to the grocery store and stocked up on food for us. So on Tuesday morning, we were anxious to pack a lunch and head to the beach! The waves were too rough for any kind of swimming, but there was lots of time for jumping waves and building a magical castle for the mermaids and sand faeries.

After our nice picnic lunch and lots of play, we went back to our room and read stories for a while. Then we hit the kiddie pool for lots of swimming and splashing.

Day 6 - Wednesday

This was a great day! We went to Jockey's Ridge State Park in Kittyhawk. It is the largest natural sand dune system on the east coast. The largest dune is between 90 and 110 feet tall, depending on winds.

On top of the first dune, Lela shields Liv's eyes from the blowing sand.

Source of fresh water - vernal pool where rare toads breed.

We had the highest kite on the dunes that day.

The wind was very strong - 30mph - so I had to hold the kite. The girls were not capable of holding onto it! We had nearly 500 feet of line out at one point!

Green tree frog

Amazing! We found this little gal hopping around one of the two small tree and vine tussocks in the middle of the dunes. She was about 150meters away from the vernal pool shown in the previous picture.

We put her on a nice leaf and shared some of our water with her, to clean her up and rehydrate her delicate skin. In gratitude, she posed for some pictures.

Black and white photo series - playing in the dune grasses.

Racing up the dunes!

Lela and Liv climbing the biggest dune at Jockey's Ridge.

My favorite picture from Jockey's Ridge.

In the afternoon, we went to the Nags Head Nature Preserve. It is an globally rare ecosystem - maritime forest. Where we lived in Virginia Beach, at First Landing State Park, is also an globally rare ecosystem. So it felt just like home. Beautiful forested dunes, plants that are usually found in the piedmont and mountains, freshwater swamps and marshes.

We only got to walk two short trails, totaling 1 mile, but enjoyed every minute of it. Here are some highlights:

Tiny, tiny mushroom growing beside a fruiting partridge berry.

Partridge berry is normally found in the mountains and some parts of the piedmont.) For reference, the berry is a bit smaller than a dogwood berry. We had a great time imaging what faeries made this sweet little mushroom their home.

Stunning yellow mushroom.

After all the rain on Monday, the mycological life was quite abundant.

And as if seeing ONE green tree frog in a day weren't special enough - here is a second!

Not quite so glamourous, living in a PVC pipe in the middle of a maritime forest. Only a couple miles away from the green tree frog living in the middle of the largest sand dune system on the east coast. When we peeked inside, there was another tree frog down there. It was too dark to identify though.

Forested dunes.

Imagine that the shore used to be just on the other side of those dunes, but over time land was created and colonized. We lived between sand dunes just like these in Virginia Beach.

Posing on a float dock at a little freshwater pond.

These sources of freshwater, if you remember, are vitally important to all life on the Outer Banks. Including people, since are not visitors in nature, we are a part of nature. We felt very grateful to visit this special place.