There's a reason we picked this area...

Author's Note: I actually wrote this blog entry a week and a half ago, about two days after the events described. Then I pretty much forgot to transcribe it for your reading pleasure. Sorry about that. On the plus side, it adds an extra layer of irony to the first few lines.

The reason this most recent blog entry is late (as opposed to the reason so many others were late) is that I was out of town this weekend on a trip. It wasn't so good for blog writing but besides that it was a ridiculously productive and thoroughly enjoyable trip. Sarah and I went to the Outer Banks. Officially we were there for wedding planning. Unofficially we just wanted to go to the beach.

Honestly, though, I wasn't expecting "beach" as much of an option. It is October after all. I was pleasantly surprised. It was seventies and sunny all weekend, beautiful weather to be walking around in (which is good, because we did a lot of that).

We visited four different potential wedding sites, and I do mean different. If I were to draw up a matrix of common components (because I'm an engineer by training, and I think like that) each site would occupy its own unique spot without overlap. Sarah has a few more site details (plus her own interpretation of the trip) on her blog.

We also hit up our favorite restaurants and even tried two new ones (one out of necessity and one out of curiosity). As we drove back and forth from appointment to appointment, we made notes on hotels, possible rehearsal dinner locations, churches, and other landmarks that might be of particular interest to guests new to the Outer Banks (or OBX as we regulars like to call it when we're feeling snooty). On top of this we found time to visit our engagement site, tour a landmark or two we hadn't visited before, and even take a traditional long walk on the beach.

The hotel was pretty shabby (not recommending that one to guests) and on the return trip one oblivious lady tried very hard to occupy the same physical space as my car by crossing three lanes of traffic from the on ramp in one spectacular merge (my poor little Civic horn is completely incapable of getting anyone's attention, thus the driver remains frustratingly oblivious to this day) - so the weekend wasn't perfect, but it was pretty close.