Wild Horses, Rest Stops, and an Army of Crabs

I was just a kid, but I remember like it was yesterday. For years my family had gone to Myrtle Beach for vacation, but that year, we tried somewhere new. Our first trip to the Outer Banks would be an interesting one, to say the least.

We planned months in advance and rented a house near the beach. We all were excited. We couldn't get into the house until Sunday, but my father heard there was great camping close to where we were staying, so we decided to leave a day early.

That morning we piled into the van, my parents, my brother, and our two younger sisters. We headed down the coast excited for our trip, and the adventure of camping for a night. After about 8 hours we finally crossed into the Outer Banks. We drove to Duck, where we were staying, and began looking for a place to camp for the night. No vacancy. There wasn't one camp site available. After driving for hours, the sun began to set. We couldn't even find a motel with an available room.

My siblings and I were young, so you can imagine that we were getting pretty antsy , tired, and hungry. So after getting something to eat, my father pulled into a rest stop for us to get some sleep. We stayed cool by turning the AC on every few minutes, but couldn't leave it on for fear of over heating the engine. It was miserable.

My parents couldn't sleep, so my father decided to get back on the road, driving aimlessly, just to kill time. At one point, getting tired, my dad simply pulled over to the side of the road to try and get some shut eye.

I don't know what time of the night it was, but I do remember my mom screaming, and everyone waking up with a start to find a huge, black, wild horse, standing directly in front of our van. It seemed to stand there for ever, just looking at us, until finally, turning and taking off into the darkness.

Time started to pass, and as the morning drew near, we found a spot we could park the van and walk to the beach. It was still pretty dark, but we had some tiki torches we brought for camping. For as miserable as the trip had been, we were finally on the beach of the Outer Banks. I layed on the sand, with my brother and sisters next to me, looking up at the moon, hearing the ocean in front of me, and I remember feeling like a castaway, like a real life Robinson Crusoe. The night hadn't turn out so bad after all.

As I turned my head and tried to sleep, in the flickering light of the torch flames, I noticed something move swiftly along the sand. A crab! Lots of 'em! All around us! We were surrounded by an army of crabs with giant (we were little kids) pinching claws, attracted by the flames! We were trapped, all of a sudden the peaceful, moonlit beach turned into one scary place!

Finally the sun came up. We washed up in a public restroom and were on our way to the rental house. We made it. It was quite the adventure, but we survived it, the night, the rest stops, the wild horses, the crabs, and all!