Northern Beaches

"We should live, until we die"

A lyric from a Fun. song that has been resonating with both me and SSBF lately. You see, we tend to get caught up in thinking about the future and material things like money and clothes instead of making the most of what we have. Life should be about the places you go, the people you meet, and the things you see--not what you are wearing or how much you spend to do it.

With that being said we had decided long before vacation that we were going to have an experience while we were here. We decided to take a guided tour of the Northern Beaches and the Spanish Mustang Reserve. In addition to being a fabulous beach locale, the Outer Banks has a rich colonial history. It is home to Roanoke Island the "Lost Colony" and is where many explorers came ashore in the "New Land". Spanish explorers are thought to be responsible for bringing the original horses here that now roam freely in the Northern Beaches.

The area where the horses now live is accessible only by 4WD vehicles by means of a "road" which is actually just the sand on the beach. While the land is mostly animal refuge there are two small communities of beach front houses, Swan Beach and Carova. The houses are beautiful, naturally, and the area is so isolated it is like having a private beach. I've already decided that this is where SSBF and I will be getting married. He laughs and rolls his eyes because we're not engaged yet and I have basically planned our wedding, but I know he wants it too (right ssbf?). Anyway, after about a 40 minute drive across the beach we pulled into Carova and rode our rented off-road Segways around trails and were lucky enough to spot some horses.

I never rode a Segway before so at first I was uncomfortable and made terribly jerky turns and movements.  It was hard to enjoy the sights when I was spending so much time trying not to fall off. As time went on though I got more comfortable with it and enjoyed zooming around checking everything out. We spent $115 dollars each for the tour but it was well worth it. Being out there was amazing, and is a part of the Outer Banks I would have never seen if we hadn't decided to do it. It will definitely be hard next year to visit somewhere else when I feel like there is so much more I could do here.