Celebrating Our Second Wedding Anniversary in OBX, NC
August sipped away like a bottle of wine (Welch’s Sparkling Red Grape Juice for me)… and so did our second wedding anniversary. To celebrate two years married, Alex and I took an extended weekend road trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina where we rented a cozy, newly renovated beach house and spent time exploring the many beautiful places along the scenic North Carolina Highway 12 and Cape Hatteras National Seashore. We spent our mornings with the rising sun, logged many miles on our feet, visited the remote Ocracoke Island by ferry, stumbled upon a couple cute coffee and ice cream shops, opened our wedding box, and r&r’d our weekend away. It was the best of times!
After spending our first wedding anniversary in Asheville, NC last year, we figured we’d switch out the Western NC mountain views for Eastern NC beachy vibes this time around. With our dog Mogul in tow, we found ourselves an amazing airbnb at the tail end of the quiet Hatteras Island and packed up the car for a five-hour ride. Reflecting on the trip, I’m so glad we finally made the time to visit this gorgeous NC destination together. I was worried it’d be too hot and busy (summer vacation and all), but it ended up being absolutely perfect — weather, crowds, everything.
Departing just before noon Saturday, we rolled into our OBX airbnb around 6pm. It was a long drive, but so much of it was us (Alex) driving down Highway 12 to our final destination. Can’t complain about a few hours on Highway 12 though — the views were spectacular. What’s better than seeing the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Sound on the other? Caught between the beauty of both worlds doesn’t give a person much to complain about. We stopped at a grocery store to get a few things for Saturday’s dinner and weekend snacks and breakfasts, then rolled up to our home-away-from-home to unpack and stretch our legs. Of course we overpacked, but Alex (the real MVP) was a saint and hauled all the goodies up the stairs and into the house while Mogul and I watched. Once we were settled, we walked over to the beach (only a few minutes walk from the house) and spent about 30 minutes before dusk listening to the waves crash the shore. To end the night, we made baked nachos and sat out on the covered patio until we were ready to crash.
Waking up Sunday, though it was an overcast morning, we still wanted to get outside for an early morning beach walk. With sunrise hitting right around 6:15am, you can imagine our wake up call was very, very early. But these are the things you do when at the beach, amirite? We rolled out of bed, got Mogul ready to go, and walked over to the beach access. Because it was so cloudy, we didn’t catch the sun per se, but we enjoyed our couple mile beach walk all the same. Back at the house, we made egg bowls for breakfast and sipped our coffee on the patio. It was a super relaxing morning — we didn’t shower and get moving until after 11am. Alex joked about how abnormal it was for us to slow our pace (for two people who are always on the go) and we shared a laugh. Little did we know the next 48 hours would be packed with many more miles and quite a lot of adventure. But that’s par for the course for the Wouters fam — if we’re not moving, are we even living?
After our slow morning, we hopped in the car to go for a cruise up Highway 12. We didn’t have firm plans (best way to travel), but we knew we wanted to hit a couple of the classic OBX lighthouses, so that’s where we headed. Our first stop was the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse — one of the most classic lighthouse destinations. Unfortunately, because the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is undergoing a complete renovation (which we knew), we didn’t get to see the iconic black and white paint and couldn’t really get close due to the lighthouse being completely covered by scaffolding. However, we were still able to check out the visitor center, walk along the path to where the original lighthouse was located (I didn’t know they moved the whole Cape Hatteras Lighthouse back in the 90’s, but that’s pretty cool), and take pictures of where it was once seated. Funny story though — on our way out, I did share a laugh with the lady behind the counter at the visitor center after the customer in front of me asked her where the lighthouse was and if they could climb it. Ma’am: you can see the lighthouse right outside the door; obviously you can’t climb it — it’s a whole construction site lol. She was very disgruntled. I asked the worker how many times people asked her where the lighthouse was and she said, “More often than you’d think.” :)
Getting back into the car, we drove about an hour north to Bodie Island Lighthouse. By the time we arrived, the sky had turned such a pretty blue which made for such a perfect backdrop. We walked around the property and snapped a few photos before one of the park rangers came over to give Mogul his first B.A.R.K. Ranger certificate. He then got a stamp for visiting the Bodie Island Lighthouse and it reminded me how grateful I am that we get to travel and make these kinds of memories with him. Our little adventure doggo — makes me so happy!
I know the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is THE lighthouse everyone in OBX wants to see, but there’s something about the Bodie Island Lighthouse I love. It was a windy afternoon (photo evidence), but we spent a good hour just roaming, chatting, snapping Polaroids, and having the best time. The kind of days that are my favorite kind of days.
Driving back down Highway 12, we hit a few little stops on our way back to the house. The first was a beach stop — there are so many beautiful pull-off spots along the highway. This one was nice because it had a long walking path to the ocean and there were hardly any people out and about. We didn’t stay too long, but as we were taking a selfie on my camera, Alex and I didn’t hear the waves crashing a little higher on the shoreline, and that resulted in a big splash of water getting both of us. Those sneaky high tides will get you if you let them. We laughed at my pants which were basically soaked through!
Stops two and three were for food — ice cream and pizza. Can’t have a busy day on the beach without a couple treat-yourself moments! We called in a pizza order to Angelo’s Pizza and while we were waiting, we swung by an ice cream shop to enjoy a waffle cone. Mogul got himself a pup cup and while we told him to be patient and wait, you can see he really wanted that ice cream! The pizza was really good too — the perfect dinner after a busy day. We ate the pizza on the patio back at our house (can’t stress enough how awesome it was to have the most amazing beachy weather (low-to-mid-70s) and a covered patio area to go with it) and let ourselves chill for an hour or so.
We ended the night with another beach walk, the perfect way to unwind and get a few more steps in. It wasn’t a super late night — frankly speaking, all three of us were exhausted. I might have read a chapter in my book, but I sure didn’t make it far before my eyes were rolling shut. Plus, knowing we had an early wake up call the next morning, we didn’t want to be out and about too late into the night.
When the alarms went off Monday morning, I almost convinced myself we didn’t need to go to the beach for the sunrise. I looked out the window and saw clouds again and thought we could just go back to sleep because there was nothing to see. But we ended up getting out of bed and I’m so glad we did — the sun was doing its thing poking through some of the clouds. There’s something about a sunrise beach walk. We don’t get to see them often, but when we do, they’re always worth the early rise.
Walking along the shore and wading our feet in the water, we even got a couple cute Polaroids — one of Mogul with the yellow/orange sky and one of sleepy Alex and Jen. These might be my favorite Polaroid snaps from the entire trip.
In talking about what we wanted to do for our Monday adventure, we decided to leave Mogul home and take the ferry to Ocracoke Island (you could tell he was tired from Sunday). I’m always apprehensive about leaving him behind, especially in a foreign place, but I knew he needed a rest day and would settle a bit more once we were gone. Before we left, I turned on the tv to give him some background noise. I could only get one show to play and that happened to be Baywatch. So Mogul watched a Baywatch marathon the whole morning and afternoon haha.
We bought our tickets for the earliest passenger ferry so we could get over to the island and be back before dark. The ferry ride itself was about an hour, so we found ourselves a cozy spot on the top deck to get comfortable. What’s really nice is that Ocracoke Island has a free shuttle system to help you get around town. This works perfect if you don’t have your car (vehicles are allowed on the island) or if you don’t want to spend the money on a golf cart or bikes. We decided to use the free transportation — why rent our own special equipment when the free services do the exact same thing, right? We were able to hit quite a few places across the island, making it a super fun date day.
Of course, no Alex and Jen day of adventure starts without coffee, so we swung by Ocracoke Coffee Company to get our caffeine (decaf for me) fix before visiting the Ocracoke Lighthouse, the second oldest lighthouse in the nation. While it’s not a climbable lighthouse, they have it setup so you can walk into the base of it, so we took our time perusing the boardwalk, poking around inside the lighthouse, and finishing our coffee.
Compared to the other black and white-themed lighthouses of OBX, the Ocracoke Lighthouse has a completely different look and feel — its solid white frame is also much shorter and wider than the Cape Hatteras and Bodie Island lighthouses. I do love me a good lighthouse, and getting to see the big three was a good check off the OBX bucket list!
One thing we didn’t know, but learned from our first shuttle driver, was that Ocracoke, NC was the place where Blackbeard died. He told us to check out Springer's Point and walk the nature trails out to the waterfront as this is the place that is believed to be Blackbeard’s meeting ground just before his final battle and subsequent death. I never would’ve guessed this to be the place, but you learn something new every day. Leaving the lighthouse, we realized we were only a quarter mile from Springer’s Point, so we walked over there and took a half hour to explore the preserve. There was one big sign at the trail’s entrance that featured a section about Edward Teach, but if it hadn’t been for our shuttle driver, we’d have never known to check this place out. There’s your Blackbeard lore!
For lunch, despite the many restaurant options around, we opted for tacos from the popular Eduardo’s food truck. I read about this place online before we bought our ferry tickets, but our shuttle driver reinforced it as THE place to eat. Let me be the first to say — those tacos were bomb and Eduardo’s did not disappoint! Alex got fresh catch tacos and I got a jerk chicken taco with big chunks of avocado and a mango salsa. Quite literally some of the best tacos I’ve had in my life. Unfortunately, as we left, we learned that this was going to be their last year serving the island. After 15 years, the owner made the difficult decision to close the business, and so it seems, many people (locals, tourists) are sad about it. I, for one, will be thinking about those tacos for a long time, and it sucks knowing I’ll never get to have them again, but as is often said: “It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
When we finished eating, we walked over to 1718 Brewing Ocracoke, the local brewery on the island. While I couldn’t partake in the sipping of a beer flight, Alex did the taste testing for both of us. It was nice to sit in the air conditioning for a few minutes — despite it being just 80 degrees, the hot sun had us baking in the heat all afternoon. I hadn’t even realized I was sunburned until we sat down to relax… oops! Soon it was time to hop on the shuttle one last time to get back to the ferry for our return trip. While we were waiting for our time slot, one of the workers was telling us Ocracoke facts, and while I didn’t catch them all, the one I did hear was that at one time, there were three known black bears that called Ocracoke home. Crazy to think these bears made it onto the island because that’s quite the swim from any of the other points of land.
As for the ferry ride back to the OBX terminal — I couldn’t tell you much because I knocked out and took a nap! Guess a day in the sun had me in need of a quick slumber, and who am I to refuse my body what it desires :)
Back at the house, Mogul was very excited to see us — and yes, Baywatch was still on! We sat on the couch a bit and watched some of the show ourselves (it’s sooo cringe haha) before snacking on leftover pizza and going back out to the beach for a late-afternoon walk.
Alex had been dying to get Mogul to play in the ocean waves, but Mogul’s never been the biggest fan of water. Taking advantage of the warmer weather, Alex decided to test his luck anyway, and for 20 minutes I watched the two of them running and jumping in the waves… Alex maybe having more fun than Mogul, but he was a good sport about it. When he was done though, he was done. If you tried to pull him to the water, his brakes went right on.
As it was our last night in OBX, we had a lot of stuff to pack back up (time goes quick at the beach). Before starting that process, we took a ride for one last ice cream. This time we went to the nearby Happy Belly Ice Cream and yeah, that ice cream cone was worth the long lines and wait time. No ice cream for Mogul here though (can’t sweeten him up too much), only Alex and I got to indulge. To end the evening, we got to packing and sat out on the patio catching the cool ocean breeze. We wanted to try a night walk on the beach, but it was too overcast to see any stars, so we went to bed instead.
Tuesday morning was a fun one to wake up to as August 5th marked our second wedding anniversary! It’s crazy to me that two years could’ve passed in what felt like the blink of an eye, but as always, time keeps on moving. To celebrate, we got ourselves out of bed at sunrise, grabbed our wedding box and a blanket, and walked out to the beach. We setup a spot in the sand to catch the sun and opened our box to celebrate year two. As mentioned in our wedding story, to celebrate our wedding day, Alex and I bought an engraved unity lockbox to open on our first wedding anniversary. Inside, we added a nice bottle of wine, our longer personal vows, and a Polaroid picture snapped right before “I Do”. Our own sweet tradition, we decided that each anniversary going forward, Alex and I would open our lockbox, read the vows, drink the wine, look at the last year’s picture, then repeat for the next year.
Opening the box, we reread our original wedding vows and looked at our wedding day Polaroid before opening the letters we wrote to each other in Asheville from our first anniversary celebration the year prior. A couple had also helped snap our picture, so we looked at that Polaroid for the first time too. Honestly, I couldn’t imagine our life without this tradition. How cool is it to have these letters to look back on year-over-year? You could see our love and growth in those letters, and reading them — the wedding cards for the second time and the first anniversary cards for the first time — showed me how much of a perfect match Alex and I really are. The words we wrote on those pages demonstrate such intent and sentiment and I look forward to the day when we have a whole box of them to look back on. It’s funny how words have the power to take you back in time, but reading both sets of letters, I felt like I was transported right into the moments that made them — sitting at the table on wedding day rushing to finish my card as our officiant was saying “Jen we got to go!” and sitting inside our cozy Asheville cabin with a whining dog because Alex was outside writing his letter and he was stuck inside with me.
We even brought the ultrasound picture of our girl with us to document the moment. Anniversary number two, special for many reasons, will always be the one we shared with our growing baby.
Being that it was before 7am, we of course didn’t drink the Asheville wine we’d put in the box the year prior, so we took our second anniversary Polaroid and put our new cards in the pouch to read on year three. The wine (and you know, Welch’s Sparkling Red Grape Juice for me) would have to wait until we were home. Plus, we still had to stop at an OBX winery to get our bottle to replace it. We gathered all our stuff, walked back to the house, finished packing, and began our long drive home.
On our way up Highway 12, we listened to our wedding playlist (another tradition!) and had fun reminiscing all the songs that made our wedding day so special. We made one quick stop at Jockey’s Ridge State Park in Nags Head on our way out, but didn’t stay too long because the sand dunes out there were HOT (if they were hot for me, I was worried about how hot they were for Mogul). I was also already sunburned from our day at Ocracoke Island, so I was wearing long sleeves in the sun, which was also hot. The short time at the ridge was nice though — the park is home to the tallest active sand dune system in the eastern US and yeah, those dunes feel like they go on forever. Leaving Nags Head, we made a quick detour for takeout lunch and bought our anniversary wine to drink next year. Maybe I’ll actually get to have a glass or two from that bottle!
Our OBX anniversary weekend was everything I needed and more. I said it last year and I’ll let it be known again — you don’t have to travel extravagantly or luxuriously to celebrate life and love. Sometimes an airbnb on the coast does just as much. To my husband, thanks for another fantastic year of marriage. Life’s so much better with you by my side. My lifeline, my favorite travel companion, my best friend. Please always let these anniversary days be a reminder of where we started, how far we’ve come, and how far we have to go.
Happy 2nd Anniversary my love. Two years down, forevermore to go. I’m very excited for what’s in store for year three, the year we welcome our sweetest blessing and expand our family. May the year ahead be one of challenge and excitement, but always, always bursting with love.
Life with you goes way too FAST:
“Sixty seconds now feels more like thirty / Tick-tock, won’t stop, and ‘round it goes / Sand through the glass sure falls in a hurry / And all you keep trying to do is slow it down, soak it in / Keep trying to make the good times last as long as you can / But you can’t, man / It just goes too fast”
PS — a few related posts to walk down memory lane :)
Enjoy!
JBW