Out of all the places I've been on this trip, I feel a little stupid saying north Carolina is one of my favorites. I don't mean to hate on North Carolina, but when I think of it, I don't necessarily think of rugged, wild, beautiful nature. I hardly even think of beaches, even though it's mostly on the Atlantic coast. Maybe that's because I'm a spoiled little vagabond, but whatever. The only thing I can think of to justify my love for north Carolina is the beach and the sand.
I have always been a sand dune person ever since we went to White Sands, New Mexico. Something about the open space, or the patterns the wind makes in the sand just drew me in. Plus its like a huge sandbox playground, who doesn't love that? The sand just calls you to take off your shoes and let it slip between your toes, to run to the top of the next dune to see how far you can see into the distance, and of course sand sledding on your butt, which comes with some mild consequences like having sand up your crack for a week, but is still awesome. I've also always loved the ocean and beaches for obvious reasons (who doesn't?). Anyway, the outer banks are the perfect mix of both.
The Outer Banks of North Carolina are basically a thin strip of land 20 or so miles away from the mainland. Some kind of natural pattern or force of nature makes it so the strip of land has many sand dunes, not quite as big as the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado, but big enough to kick your butt walking up them.
The campground we parked the bus at was a couple miles from the larger sand dunes. We pulled in at night, so we couldn't see very well but we could tell from the silhouettes on the horizon that there were small dunes between us and the beach. We stopped the engine and immediately grabbed our flash lights and put on our shoes to explore (Which was necessary because there were gnarly cacti there). We took a small path that wound through the dunes from our site to the beach, running from dune to dune and smelling the ocean and letting loose after driving all day. We got to the ocean and despite the temptation, definitely didn't get in because the water and air were too cold.
The next morning we were able to explore it in the sunlight, so we went back to the beach and found that the most common seashells on the beach were smooth chunks of thick, light purple shell which we made a goal to fill our pockets full of. We walked for a while and got as much as we could, and then came back to count up our lot. The shells could fill up a Walmart bag so we all insisted we would make some sort of mosaic mural with them on one of the walls in the bus (Which still hasn't happened 6 months later).
The day after that, we decided to visit the larger sand dunes which ended up being even funner. They were like any other orange sand dunes except for the fact that they had swallowed a forest. After climbing and walking around in the hot sun for a while, we discovered that at the south end of the dunes, there was a big slope that fed into a big forest below. There were tree limbs coming out of the sand on the slope so you could tell they had been buried by the dune. There was a path going down into the forest, which we slid down into. The sand was cold under our feet from the shade of the trees as we entered, and it had an eerie feel for some reason, maybe it was the threat of being buried alive like all the trees and plants. I followed the line of sand along the ground, occasionally climbing up onto it to get around a tree, and went deeper into the forest, stepping on dead leaves and crunching twigs with my bare feet. Discovering and exploring the forest was one of my many highlights on the trip.
Atlanta
A week or so after the Outer Banks, sometime in November, we arrived in Atlanta, Georgia, ready to do some volunteering at a nonprofit our friend works at called Atlanta Dream center which helps fight homelessness, poverty, and prostitution in the that area. We were read to get our hands dirty and help out firsthand at the Dream center, like working on some houses for rescued women from human trafficking, or doing some artwork to hang on the walls for the houses, but sadly it got too cold before we had a chance to do those things, so we had to leave. However, we did get a chance to do some other helpful things at the center. Basically, we served the people who serve the people.
Our first job was helping out in a kitchen to feed all the Dream Center workers. We made a couple dishes, like Brussels sprouts and potatoes, or even little things like grinding coffee. Another less fun job was throwing out the spoiled donated food in the warehouse, which I spent a lot of time on. They were short on workers for a couple weeks so most of the fruits and vegetables had expired and were kind of disgusting, so I put on some gloves and got to work. I filled up a good 5 trashcans with moldy watermelons and squashes and apples and eggplants. So it wasn't exactly what I expected but technically I did get my "hands dirty" volunteering.
Then came mid December along with freezing temperatures and suckiness, so we got our butts outta there and headed to Florida.
