Sunday 14th March 2010 - A Monument to Lawyers

          We've moved to Daylight-Saving Time, so I've lost an hour.  That turns out to be small beer, as a defective bathplug causes my whole Roman Empire to fall.  The Emperor is too decadent to go and collect a bag of sand, so it serves him right.  Still, without the opportunity to read several chapters in the bath, the hour is more than made up for.

 

          But I waste some time dithering over whether to visit the Wright Brothers Memorial or the beach first.  Since we're an hour ahead, it's the middle of the day before I decide.  I got enough sun on the ferry, so I will take to the beach late.  But when I actually see the light of day, it's quite cold and dull, and I have to get out my puff jacket again.

          The Wright Brothers' Memorial Park is a testament to lawyers.  The Wrights chose Kill Devil Hill not just because of the ocean winds and the slope: they were also interested in a soft, sandy landing: the hill was a giant sand dune.  When the nation turned it into a national monument, the lawyers drew up a map, with coordinates to delineate the place.  The dune, undaunted by mere lawyers, upped and started to move out of their park.

          Now you and I might have extended the park, and organised options for the future, but the government planted trees and grass to stabilise it.  The sort of place the Wright Brothers would have avoided; it now looks nothing like what they needed.

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But, to the government, it happened 'here'.

          The last time I was here was around thirty years ago.  My memory tells me there were other huge dunes about, with people using exactly the properties the Wrights used, for hang-gliding.  It's all developed now.  If you tried hang gliding, you'd end up in someone's front room.  There's even an airfield, with a tarmac runway, in the Memorial park.

 

          When I got to the beach, there were still some surfers out

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but the weather was closing in, and they cleared up and left.  Pretty soon it all looked as desolate as it must have in the Wright Brothers time

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and, well wrapped up, I enjoyed a quiet walk, with the place to myself.