American Locations 6 - North River

The trip is from New River, West Virginia, to Stinking Creek, Tennessee, by way of Long Key, Florida.

 North River Campground, North Carolina

We drove east on Hwy. 158. We skirted the southern edge of The Great Dismal Swamp on to the coast, where the road turned south. At the southern tip of the peninsula we crossed from the mainland onto the Outer Banks at Kitty Hawk. As we continued south on the barrier island on 158 we noticed traffic was streaming north and we were practically the only vehicle heading south. So we pulled into a store to see if anything was going on. Was it ever. A hurricane was moving inland and people were being advised to evacuate. We never listen to the radio while traveling, I don't like all the DJ jibber-jabber, so we usually listen to music. We immediately turned around and joined everybody else driving off the barrier island.

We found a private campground not too far away from the coast to wait out the storm. The North River Campground is on the edge of North River Game Land, a wildlife sanctuary.

We were safely away from the coast here, but the wind still rocked us. We stayed several days, until it was safe to proceed back out onto the Outer Banks. Some of the time it was too windy to even be outside. So we hunkered down. But other days the wind let up enough for us to drive around. We took a drive up to see The Great Dismal Swamp.

The visitor center had an impressive taxidermy display.

There was also a short boardwalk through the swamp. As you can see by all the fallen trees, they have to contend with frequent strong hurricane winds.

The purple berries again. They were all over the state.

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