| Outer Banks Vacation Trip Reports: EVI'S PLACE -
COROLLA 7/26/2015 - 8/9/2015
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Summer 2015 Corolla Vacation - Evi's Place - Posted By: Jill Dwyer
On Our Way to the OUTER BANKS!
We got lucky again this year and found another Twiddy Outer Banks vacation rental home that fit our needs AND had a Sunday check-in!
After a few years of Sunday check-ins, I am now officially spoiled, maybe even jaded! Yes, there are other vacationers on the road
and the traffic does slow down a bit through Southern Shores heading into Duck, but it's nothing like the crawl on Saturday. We were
cruising along at a decent pace, thinking we had plenty of time to verify which check-in office we were supposed to go to (Twiddy Duck
or Twiddy Corolla), and almost missed the Twiddy Duck office. No problems, we called and they said stop in Duck, right as we were in
front of the office! They let us know our home was going to be ready very soon (it was still early in the day) and that it has a keyless
entry! We had a chance to chat with Ross Twiddy and his co-worker Nate who went over all the details of how to work the keyless entry and
where to turn off rt.12 to find our vacation rental. In packing for the beach, I realized we were in need of one more beach towel, so I
figured that would be one of our first tourist purchases. Nope, Twiddy hooked us up with a beautiful new Twiddy beach towel before the
sent us on our way.
I’ve said it before and it’s worth saying again, SUNDAY CHECK-INS ARE FANTASTIC! Arriving in the Outer Banks in the summer on
any day, but Saturday, is the best way to go. We had absolutely no traffic issues on our trek from Richmond to Duck.
The House – Evi's Place
Evi's Place, our home for our two-week beach getaway, is in Ocean Sands, section D, one turn south of the light at Harris Teeter in Corolla.
Will likes the GPS. I only like it when I am lost, which is pretty rare, but he loaded the house address and it was a good thing because I went
right past the driveway, even though it said I had arrived at our address! The home is hidden in the trees, and reminded me of a tree house.
It was secluded, quiet, but right in the middle of Ocean Sands. So quiet, that the home next to ours had eight cars in the driveway the first
week we were there, but I only heard the guests once when they were outside playing in their pool and I was outside on the deck. Evi's Place
was spotless and had lots of decking and plenty of space on all three floors, including a big open kitchen.
The base floor has a large utility room, with plenty of space to leave our shoes, tennis rackets and beach bags. Outside is a shower, a few
large, shaded benches, under house parking, beach gear storage, and plenty of clothesline for our towels and suits.
Three bedrooms were located on the second floor, one queen suite and one queen that shared a nice sized hall bathroom with a jetted tub with
the third, bunk bed bedroom. The queen suite and the hallway had doors leading out to the deck where we found a hammock swing and a hot tub.
The hot tub is a nice touch!
The top floor included a large living room area with sofas, TV, fireplace, a dining table, kitchen and another queen suite. The kitchen is
well designed and stocked, with large wood cabinets and wide counters. There is access to decking on the third floor from both the living
area and the master suite. This third floor deck level had stairs leading to a great crows nest. We haven't had a crows nest in years and
I miss it! We had nice views of the ocean from the Adirondack chairs in the crows nest and we captured some wonderful sunset photos from this
spot too.
Who, What, Where and How
Beach
If you've read any of our trip reports, you know we are beach people. We got to the beach regardless of the conditions. Will sneaks out of the
house before the crack of dawn to catch the sunrise while the rest of us sleep. We eat breakfast and come to life then head down to the sand where
we play in the waves on the boogie board, swim with goggles on days when the water is clear, which was several this year, look for treasures (I
found lots of sea glass and a few sharks teeth this trip), read, make sand castles, dig holes (they get filled!), and then do it all over again.
We never did luck out with the tides and a sand bar to use the surf board this trip, but it’s a good excuse to come back soon before the weather
and the water turn cold! I am sure we could have loaded up the board and found decent surf at another location, possibly the lighthouse, but that
would have required planning and moving and well, we were a little too comfortable and relaxed to make that much of an effort.
Duck Trips
It was tough for us to even pull away to go watch the sunsets on the sound in Duck. We managed to make it down a handful of nights, including one
where we got to see quite the light show on the sound and then test our tires out on the soaked roads cruising through the driving rain! Glad I have
newer tires and sit up high! On those evenings where we just got started with dinner too late to make the drive south, we climbed up the stairs to the
crows nest and got a great view of the sunsets. I do miss making the trips to Duck though as I always find an excuse to slip into one of the stores to
splurge on something yummy or to find something we need.
Our kids are old enough now that if we put enough screens in front of them, we can leave for hours and they not only won’t notice, but they won’t get
into any trouble either! We took advantage of the situation, filled them up on pizza one night, separated them on different floors and rooms and took
off for a nice dinner out! We thoroughly enjoyed an evening on the sound at Paper Canoe, but we almost didn’t get a chance to go. I called to make
reservations the morning we were thinking of going and that night wasn’t an option! We ended up with reservations for three days later. At that point,
I was just happy to get in and was laughing at myself for not realizing just how busy things were at the end of July. It’s that Sunday drive that lulls
us into a separate reality world and the fact that with the wide beach in Corolla, it never seems that crowded!
Corolla Village and Corolla Light
In the first week we did split up our beach visits a little bit with a trip to Corolla Village and Corolla Light town center to peek in the shops, find
books that everyone wanted and pick up BBQ for the way home. Another almost miss was the BBQ! I walked up and no one was in line. I thought maybe
something was wrong, but apparently I was late and they were out of many things! I was happy to help “dispose” of the remaining items for the evening.
Clearly we were still in vacation La La Land in our secluded beach tree house.
Nags Head
On the second week the kids were getting restless so, we loaded them in the car and drove south. The first day we headed south we went to Jockey’s
Ridge where I made the late but great decision to ditch Will with the kids and let them climb while I rested in peace and quiet in the shade, reading
my book. Been there, done that and it was crazy hot. We left and headed over to Tortugas Lie for a wonderful lunch. So much fresh fish! Then we stopped
by a few outlet stores before returning to Corolla. The next day, we drove REALLY far south into the middle of nowhere south, AKA Hatteras Island!
Hatteras Island
We’ve only gone over the bridge and checked out Pea Island on past trips, so this was a new adventure for everyone. We stopped at Pea Island and again,
it was crazy hot and it was high tide so there weren’t many shells and I couldn’t make it back to the car fast enough. We should have gotten started
earlier in the morning! We loaded into the car, drank all our water and continued south all the way down to the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. Even with
the temperature in the 90s, we decided to make the climb and bought tickets. I really appreciated that we were given a set climb time instead of making
us wait in line. It actually wasn’t too hot during the climb, but it was hot at the base outside and, of course, it was beautiful and breezy once we made
it up and out at the top. The views provided the perfect mini tour of Hatteras. With the high heat, came high haze though and it ended up not being a
good day for photos. SO MUCH HAZE! Kind of bummed because we were hoping to get a ton of Hatteras photos to add to Will’s collection. We now have the
perfect excuse to make a return trip in the fall, when the weather is cool and clear. After our lighthouse climb, we found Buxton Munch and we ate way
too much because the crabby patties and rockfish were very tasty. On our way back north we stopped at Jennette’s Pier and wandered around, checking out
everything in the water and then we stopped at THE Ben Franklin for a few beach essentials. We made one last detour in Duck to pick up some fresh NC shrimp
for diner before heading to the beach house.
Time to Go Home
As the end of our second week was approaching, I was getting a little worried that I hadn’t done much to get everything packed up and ready to go and I
was trying to figure out how I was going to do that and still enjoy our last day on the beach. Mother nature changed my plans and we had a super lazy
day in the house watching storms come and go all day! I had plenty of time to clean off our beach gear, clear our pantry items out of the cabinets,
and get everyone’s stuff back to them so they could pack. We all sat around reading and watching TV, a true veg out vacation day. I did make it down
the beach access in between storms to see the ocean. It was crazy wild, with high tide, kicked up waves, etc. It’s always shocking and so cool to see
how fast it can change from day to day. Quite mesmerizing and our sign it was time to go!
Sunday morning we packed up and headed north. We didn’t have to turn in any keys so we took a walk through the Whalehead club and down the long sound
side dock, where we saw tons of butterflies and dragonflies. On our way south we stopped off for lunch and gas, letting everyone else checking out that
day get off the island long before we hit the road. Our plan worked well and we cruised home fairly quickly.
Lots of thanks to the great people at Twiddy for another wonderful Outer Banks vacation!
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