Top 10 of 2013: Dawn of Aviation

Since 2009, Chris and I have been avid geocachers. We love being able to get outside and explore when we’re ordinarily tied up at work or studying indoors. A lot of characteristics make up an excellent geocache, and one excellent geocache may seem nothing like another excellent geocache. The next few posts will describe the 10 best geocaches we found in 2013 based on the number of “Favorite Points” earned by the geocaching community.

A Favorite Point is awarded to a geocache by a user who for some reason or another found the cache to be a cut above the rest. Geocaches with more favorite points tend to catch the attention of other geocachers, especially when traveling, as peers have identified them as being outstanding.

Number 10: Dawn of Aviation
Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina
182 Favorite Points

Over the summer my dad visited Chris and I from the Vancouver, British Columbia area. Based on the success of our big summer road trip in 2012, we constructed a smaller one covering some of the most unique and interesting areas within a few hundred miles of our home near Morgantown, West Virginia. The goal for Day 2 of this road trip was to see where North Carolina became “first in flight.”

On a hot July day, this monument was buzzing with activity. The most noticeable characteristic was the wind. It was so windy that a lot of children were flying kites. When one child lost his kite, Chris went running into the high grass to retrieve it. Indeed, the winds are a large component of what brought two brothers from Ohio out to this glorified sand bar.

Chris returning a child's kite

Geocaches come in several different types. Most people think of a geocache as a large container in the woods. In this case, the geocache actually had no container, this type of geocache is called a “virtual.” Instead, the geocache page gave instructions on what to do when we arrived at the posted coordinates: “there is one particular 10-ton granite marker (boulder) that is about six feet tall and four feet wide with a plaque (tablet) on it. To confirm your visit to this cache, email or post a picture of you and your GPS standing beside this marker.”

Dad and I fulfilling the logging requirements (our GPS also took the photo, which is why it is missing)

The plaque reads:

“The first successful flight of an airplane was made from this spot by Orville Wright December 17, 1903, in a machine designed and built by Wilbur Wright and Orville Wright

This tablet was erected by the National Aeronautic Association of the U.S.A. December 17, 1928 to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of this event.”

After finding the geocache, we drove over to scale Kill Devil Hill and see the enormous monument and just take in a place that had a profound effect on my field of work, transportation.

In this case, we had every intention to visit the Wright Brothers National Memorial. But the presence of a geocache added to the overall fun had at the site. In other situations, the geocache is what brings you to a special place.

First in Flight

Almost everyone knows that the Wright Brothers are the fathers of aviation; that these brothers financed their dream of flight with a modest bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio and that their dream came true on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Indeed, both states proclaim their proud relationship to aviation on their license plates. This is just information in our collective consciousness. But there is good reason for the Wright Brothers choice of Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.

When seeking a locale to test their experimental craft, the Wright Brothers had a few criteria. They required an area with a fairly steady and predictable breeze, wide-open and clear land, and privacy. After writing for advice, Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hill emerged as the ideal locale. At the Wright Brothers National Memorial it is made particularly clear that these characteristics came at a price. Transportation to Kitty Hawk was convoluted involving multiple modes over a lot of time. Then, once arriving, having to set up a primitive camp for shelter.

The monument to the Wright Brothers atop Kill Devil Hill

And since 1903, these conditions have brought millions of people back here to experience what special conditions coupled with the vision of two brothers yielded a transportation breakthrough that we still enjoy so greatly every day. My experience is just one of so many similar.

What is most noticeable really is the breeze. It is persistent and seems to carry some of the humidity away with it. At one point, it even carried off the kite of a little boy. Quick on his feet, Chris darted into the tall grass and retrieved it.

Chris returning the kite to the little boy

That brings me to the next observation: the land. The ground is sandy. The Outer Banks are literally a narrow sandbar just off shore. The only vegetation that seems to grow is grass whether long and wildly in patches or deep and beautifully in finely manicured lawns. Surprisingly, prickly pear cactus was also common. Indeed, a glider or an experimental aircraft could make a softer landing here than on the tougher, harder, working land in Ohio.

The third characteristic of interest is the one now missing: privacy. While the Outer Banks are not settled in the same density as other, similar beach and resort areas you are still surrounded by humanity. No worries though, the National Park Service has enough land that when standing at the sites where the first airplane took off and each of the three flights on December 17, 1903 (each clearly marked) the feeling of wonder is genuine.

The monument viewed from the take off point of the flights of December 17, 1903

The monument at Kill Devil Hills is outstanding, but the legacy of the Wright Brothers is still alive and well in Dayton as well. Dayton is home to the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base which in turn is home of the Museum of the United States Air Force, the subject of an earlier post.

Visit the Wright Brothers National Memorial

Learn more at Ohio History Central and North Carolina History

Summertime 2013!

After completing an exam this morning, the Spring 2013 is officially wrapped up and the time of year I affectionately refer to as “summer” is here. Summer for a graduate student is not the same as summer is for an undergraduate student. This is a concept lost on many people, including my mother. For a graduate student, summer is the time they have to delve into their research without the distractions of classes and (usually) teaching responsibilities. This is when dissertation topics are developed (but rarely proposed—after all, your advisor often needs a vacation, too!), field work is completed with reckless abandon, and we often carry our laptops and books outside and enjoy a campus virtually devoid of the otherwise ubiquitous undergraduate student.

My plans for the summer are to do much of the data collection for my dissertation. I may even kindly solicit the help of you, my blog readers, for parts of this data collection. I’m also working on proposals and still that big project that pays the bills. That other thing that many do not understand, if you are a funded graduate student, school more resembles work. Despite the fact a schedule similar to a 5-day work week is adhered to, over the summer there are a few opportunities for a long weekend adventure or two (or five?).

I’ve had a few ideas (fantasies?) for summer adventures, for those more experienced, I’d love to hear what you have to think or suggest:

The Delmarva Peninsula and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel: Any bridge where locals make piles of money driving folks from out of town across (because it’s long, high up, and freaks people out) sounds like something I must check out. As for the Eastern Shore of Maryland (and the neighboring bit of Virginia), like with Western Maryland, you don’t hear much about it. It seems like a quiet, pleasant place (except possibly for Ocean City on a hot July day).

Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina: I’ve had the opportunity to explore other areas of this state, but I’d like to see where it was that North Carolina became first in flight. I hear the beach is nice, too, but beaches are far more ubiquitous than the first controlled, powered airplane flight. I feel like it would have the same kind of strange ambiance as discovering where Marconi transmitted the first telegraph from the US to England. Though, I can’t imagine getting the solitude of the Cape in October on a North Carolina beach in a warm month.

Paddling Stonewall Jackson Lake: Earlier this year, when it was particularly frigid out, Chris and I spent a wonderful night at the Stonewall Jackson Resort (near Weston, WV), which sits right on the lake. At that point we also learned that, included in the room rate, are several recreational opportunities, including kayaks. I would love little more than to spend a day on the lake (with A LOT of sunscreen!) pulling up on the little islands and peninsulas beyond the reach of walking men… and it’s just incredibly beautiful out here.

Camping at Rocky Gap State Park: As a kid, the idea of camping sounded like some kind of hell. Yet, over the past few years, as I’ve assimilated into Appalachian living, the idea sounds more and more appealing. So I’ve reserved a cabin for what I’m calling “baby camping.” I use the term because it is a cabin with electric and it’s across the lake from a resort. Though, given we’re going with coolers full of meat with plans to grill, I think I’ll survive.

Tubing on the Shenandoah River: I tried tubing on the Juniata River in Mifflin County, PA last year. It got off to a rocky start when I did a really lousy job of getting myself into the tube (and consequently slamming my knee on the bottom of the river—slick granite—leading to a few months of physical therapy). Though once I got going, I had a great time. The biggest surprise was the amount of pain my whole body was in the next morning. I’ve really made tubing sound freaking miserable, but I would like to do it again, and I’d like to do it in a nice, clean river like the Shenandoah around Front Royal/Luray and all that good stuff.

I believe it was the month of July last year where on four consecutive Saturdays I signed some kind of liability waiver that used the word “death” multiple times. It was a pretty good month. I’d do that again.