Early morning by the river. A cacophony of quiet sounds: the water lapping, the takle of a sailboat clanking against the mast, the wind whispering in the pines and ringing the wind chimes, and the persistant sound of a sprinkler watering the grass next door. The pines here are straight and tall -- Rick suggests that the whole area was owned by 
Weyerhaeuser prior to development. From the site linked above is this quote
Long-time Seattle-area environmental activist and political gadfly Harvey Manning questions the preferred image of the company. "They advertise themselves as the tree-growing company, but that's all camouflage. They grow trees up until the time an accountant looks it over and says it's time for a development instead."
A gust of wind got me to look up and catch the light on the upper branches of one of the pines. In addition to the pines, there are some mimosas with fluffy pink flowers and, what I suspect are, live oaks festooned with spanish moss. The light seems to have brought out the hummingbirds, which are tootling and buzzing around.
The plan today is to take a ferry to the ocean. It will make for a long day, but it will be worth it to see the kids playing in the surf.
We ended up not taking the ferry, because it was more than 2 hours long, which seemed excessive with children. Instead we simply drove to Nags Head. We stopped briefly at Stumpy Point and looked around a bit. The wind was blowing very strongly, not enough to make you stagger, but enough to throw you off your balance if you turned suddenly. Behind the sea wall there were some wasps, probably Pompilidae, that seemed to be using holes to cache food for larvae. In one area, there were two velvet ants, the brilliant red-and-black kind I've seen called "Cowkillers" that were prowling around the holes looking for easy pickings.
The roads seemed empty and when we got to the Coquinas beach there were no more than a dozen cars. When we got out to the beach, the wind was coming from landward, blowing the sand in a fierce spray at our backs. The sand got into everything, hair, eyes, ears, and mouth -- and stuck to anything wet. The surf was surprisingly chilly -- much colder than just a few miles farther south. I've heard that gulf stream turns east not much north of Emerald Isle, where we used to stay. It certainly didn't seem to be anywhere near Nags Head. After the beach, we drove through Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills. We drove past, but did not stop, at the memorial to Wilbur and Orville Wright. I'm sure I had known at some point, but I had forgotten that their early flights were on a barrier island.