Tourists in August
Photo by William E. Evans © 2021
For reasons having little to do with this story, D and I took a flying trip to the Outer Banks in the middle of August. Are you people crazy?
Truth be told, we went to check out this plot of sand and live oak saplings we’d made an offer on. Nothing like rolling the dice.
It was in the high-90s with little shade in sight, and our sweet, imperturbable husky, who never wants to be left behind, was suffering. In hindsight we should have found a dog sitter. We were suffering ourselves, yet we don’t have a double coat of fur, so we felt guilty as hell about keeping her in the sun any longer than necessary.
I read one website that claimed husky guard coats (that’s the overcoat) trap cool air and help with hot weather—I think the author was smoking that evil weed again. The climate huskies came from is colder than a Scandinavian well digger’s ass, as we of the enlightened sect liked to say in Catholic school.
Eight for a husky is past middle age. And like a typical husky, Layla refuses to concede the fact. Except for times when she digs herself a hole in the beach sand and sits in it, refusing to go any further. Some vote with their feet—Layla votes with her entire double-coated body.
We’d gone down to the Banks at the beginning of the covid crisis to finish cleaning out the beach house before selling it. And again in July ’20 for the contract closing—so this go ‘round, we weren’t totally surprised by the harried wait staff in understaffed restaurants. The Kill Devil Grille was closed; what’s to be made of it when a place lacking chefs can’t open for their famous breakfast—at the height of the tourist season?
My personal theory is when they locked down the islands for covid-19, the wait staff fled to anywhere they might find jobs or moved back in with their parents—on top of which now many of the cheaper basement apartments they used to rent have been converted to Airbnb rooms. This latter point was made by a restaurant manager we met the first night. She said chefs were in high demand.
Half the country needs workers and the other half has descended on the Outer Banks for vacation.
And covid-19 keeps rolling on. While the Outer Banks is often referred to as Jersey South, we were well aware of being in a part of the country resisting vaccinations and masks, so we weren’t shocked to see only a few folks wearing masks—the wait staff mostly. The non-maskers may have been mentally giving the maskers the universal high sign, or the other way around, but all behaved in our immediate vicinity.
The normal tourist season on the Outer Banks runs from May to September when the school age kids climb back on buses—in normal times. We’ve preferred October when it’s cooler for our four-footed companions; plus, we can catch the tail end of hurricane season—a delightful two-fer. Early spring also works, before the tourists return like swallows to Capistrano, or monarchs butterflies to the Sierra Madre, or even the bears wake up, whichever metaphor you endorse.
To reiterate: no one lacking grade school kids and a sane mind chooses to visit the Outer Banks in late summer. Particularly not Kill Devil Hills, whose reputation for affordable cottages, very average fried food and putt-putt golf is well established. Our usual haunts in Duck being already booked, we took what was available. Possibly it was the reason I was on edge, that and too few places away from the sun—feeling badly for my eight-year-old husky.
It’s well know there are no trees in Kill Devil Hills east of the 158 Bypass.
D and I entertain ourselves with people-watching when we travel, the way some folk stay affixed to their cell phones. We all have our vices. Only, this time we were hanging with said husky in a hotel packed with ten zillion tourists, surrounded by multiple clans in caravans from Maine to Florida (though one can sympathize with getting the hell out of Florida). Oklahoma, Missouri, Texas, even California and Oregon. Crazy like they hadn’t been out of their homes in entirely too long.
If I lived within a ferry ride of Monhegan Island, I sure as hell wouldn’t drive two days from Maine to stay in Kill Devil Hills. Today’s weather on Monhegan: Partly cloudy and 78°F at 3:32 PM with a cooling breeze. Just saying.
Someone oughta explain to the out-of-towners to slow down and drink lots of water and less beer, especially those who haven’t seen the sun in a while with already rose tinted skin. Even the bikers seemed a touch peaked.
That first evening, we occupied a deck-side picnic table next to a strip mall parking lot with the whooshing 158 Bypass traffic just the other side of the fence—then waited for the solitary server. For entertainment meantime, we watched the several dozen kids and parents arrive to fully occupy two tables, the littlest, a three-year-old with sun-bleached hair who wasn’t to be disciplined for any longer than she could help. She became interested in Layla, but being about the same size judged her too dangerous to tackle. She had that skeptic’s expression of one who’d seen a few things.
The little girl was also the only one in the group not yet putting on pounds, including her teenage cousins only a few years older. Today’s Middle Americans wouldn’t recognize Dorothy Lange’s photos of their Dust Bowl ancestors; they aren’t so gaunt faced anymore.
The girl’s mother—so we assumed, being the sole adult attempting to direct the child—couldn’t have been older than twenty herself and was clearly unhappy being so tasked. With no father in sight, the young mother’s exasperated scowl was a clear advisory for proper birth control.
Layla did her best to entertain her audience, complete with husky vocalizations, despite the heat. Even after sundown, the day’s residual heat didn’t much dissipate. If she wasn’t thrilled to return to the hotel room, it was air-conditioned at the least. This is it? Her expression conveyed my own sentiments.
At the next morning’s breakfast buffet, I found the coffee bar, a half-baked English muffin and warming trays with prepackaged egg and sausage products, or at least that’s what the labels said. On the far side of the room, I spied the counter by the windows with no occupants. Ah, a view of… the parking lot.
I watched a family head for the narrow exterior balcony just outside. They appeared normal, two parents with two offspring—hard to blame them for not wanting to be inside with the crush of the free breakfast hoard. The family matron wasn’t entirely chipper, as though she hadn’t settled into her vacation. Her hubbie could have been ten years younger; he was affable enough. The youngest, a girl of four or five, wandered from table to railing and back. Their oldest, a ten-year-old boy, couldn’t close his mouth for chewing, like he’d never been taught that trick—then I saw his pappy stuff both cheeks like a chipmunk, and I needed to refill my coffee.
The day was spent in the broiling sun, surveying the open land, taking care not to step on the cacti, and wishing I’d brought water; D took Layla to go find some shade. I think it reached 100 that day. Met two contractors, met our real estate agent who was an honest to god native, hung out with the drone operator, and when it was over, I was dreaming about a cold shower.
When Glenn posted the drone shots he’d taken, it seemed worthwhile.
Currituck Sound from 27 ft. above grade—captured by drone flown by Glenn Holterhaus © 2021
Except for the heat, from that view I could have sworn I was on Nantucket.
For the next night’s dinner, we waited quietly on the lawn an hour or so listening to a guitar player, who did a cool electronic trick with his microphone harmonizing with his voice like a backup singer—needing all the help he could get. He could play his instrument but had no skill at the vocals, making it hard to recognize the songs. Not a young lad, and not likely he had made a career at this.
Though the white bearded hippy who arrived seemed content enough to gaze at the Sound lapping at his feet, meditating on the sundown, and I was concerned he’d do a little happy dance right there next to us, beard akimbo and all, while my very bored husky was moaning over the guitar player’s vocals. Then the elder hippy’s date of similar years made an appearance in pink cowboy boots like they used to wear square dancing, and a sorta mini-skirt and halter top going on; both belonged to that long ago era.
I should have been OK with her trying. I’m always trying. But it hit me in that sad place where you just don’t want to admit you’re as small as they are, but you have to know you are. I badly needed another margarita.
A trio of young girls (a troop? a cabal?) paraded past the picnic table where we were waiting for dinner. Practicing at being the coming attractions, they were followed by an older woman, bleached and moving more methodically, a caution the teens ignored, even though in time, they’d likely inherit her looks. Her lack of a smile made me wonder—was she remembering her own teenage misadventures?
The thing about teenage girl gangs is how single-minded they act at that age, hard-wired to a mission and unaware how fleeting this time in their lives proves to be.
Our waitress that evening was Slovakian—and worked the outdoor deck like she owned it. She knew, simply by our long wait for an outdoor table to accommodate Layla, if she extended enough love to the dog, she’d warm whatever cockles might remain in Layla’s exhausted human companions.
Though when the waitress said they’d run out of tequila—who runs out of tequila in a beach town?—I was ready to leave… I was tempted to say I had a bottle at home I might lend them. Actually, I just wanted to eat and return to our hotel room, hoping to sleep through to morning, and I could tell Layla the husky was of a similar mind.
It wasn’t a bad room as hotels go; it was new and clean, but imagining living in its confinement for another night felt claustrophobic. We weren’t sure whether the tight quarters or strange surroundings was disturbing her, but by the second evening, Layla was clearly stressed. Layla hadn’t eaten in two days by this time; she flat refused.
It was confusing, this sensory overload, people everywhere going about what they hoped were good times. It doesn’t seem likely folks set out intending to have a bad vacation; otherwise, they ought to stay home and catch the Duggars on TV. We were surrounded by Middle America and it was troubling—even the family from India behind us on the restaurant deck seemed in on it, convincing me I must live a sheltered life.
I was struggling—how to reconcile the semi-oblivious manners of my fellow creatures going about their rote lives, free to choose—choosing this? How to make sense of it, how to shake the feeling I was nothing to brag about either? So much energy expended, so much busyness toward what ends? If we all are working at holding something dear, should it suffice if it’s only more of the same? I was dying to get on the road.
The mother whose oldest couldn’t keep his mouth closed for chewing, was she going to do better by him than the one who’d fathered those children? Will she gift the boy a memory to carry into his life like a totem, like a torch?
Arriving back at our house in Northern Virginia, Layla refused her supper again, collapsing in a heap by the air conditioning vent. I swear it must have been the heat.