Well we were planning a lengthy stay, but when the federal government flipped out, it put a serious dent in our plans so we had to keep changing our plans. Since we were planning to dry camp at the Fenderal beach parks which don't take reservations but since it was October, and we were told there would be plenty of spots.
They wouldn't even let us photograph the Cape Haterras Lighthouse! I am still scratching my head over that one. At one point we were stopped by Federal agents blocking a road who made me make a 10 point turn in my motorhome while traffic backed up like crazy with no one knowing that for some strange reason they had closed off the road. He seemed rather angry that my motorhome couldn't make a U-turn on such a narrow road.
Some cars immediately behind us were "ordered" to pull over into a ditch while we turned this beast of a motorhome around. I think later someone said there was a parking lot down there and they hadn't finished their crude gate for it. It was embarrassing that we were forced to cause this huge lengthy traffic jam.
We were trying so hard to be loving the Outer Banks, the trip had been in the making for 2 years and I had a friend along for the trip. Neither of us had ever been. But our happy go lucky plans were rapidly going astray. Beaches is one of the top reasons we wanted to go and since we couldn't do that, it was a scramble to come up with a new game plan.
Beaches were closed even though they aren't manned by Federal employees. They actually took time to construct these crummy gates to block off beach parking!
We stayed at Teeters on Ocracoke for what little time they could give us, only because they had a no-show we were able to squeeze in. Ocracoke was a blast!
Our planned month turned into just a few days.