Kitty Hawk

So my next trip was to Kitty Hawk. I'm a big Wright Brothers fan. It was my longest trip - three hours each way. That was a long ways, but I didn't think I would be that close again.

I got to see the what I guess they call the outer banks. That was fun in itself. On a map they look just like a narrow strip of land. Thats what it is, alright. It looks narrow on the map and in real life. There are a lot of beach houses and stuff now, but back then there was pretty much sand dunes.

It was really windy the day I was there, but that is why the Wrights chose it to begin with. They did a bunch of gliding experiments from a big hill. The actual first flight, to count, had to start of the flat ground. They had all the locations mapped out. That is because Orville had come back and showed them all the spots.

They had the take off point and where the first, second, third, and fourth flights landed. The first one was actually not at all impressive. It was just over a hundred feet as I recall. Went up a little ways, then back down. A football field is 300 feet, so it really wasn't much of a flight.

I always thought that would have been a great time to be alive. You start your life with no telephones, recorded music, electric lights, automobiles, airplanes, movies, and during your lifetime, they all come into existence. It must have been mind boggling. What has been invented during my life? Nothing, really. Phones have gotten smaller, TV's have gotten bigger, computers have gotten faster, there are more channels, but I can't think of anything that really has come into existence. Things have just gotten a little better.