Manteo

One of the quaint coastal towns of North Carolina that often gets overlooked is Manteo.  If you've ever driven to the Outer Banks, you know it as the last island before Nags Head.  Manteo is a great place to sit in a bench on the marina watching the boats go out, or stroll down the sidewalk and duck into cute little shops.  But if you're a history buff like me, Manteo is a treasure trove of references and allusions to the past.  And I mean the WAY back past of the 1500's, which is tough to find in the United States.  Everywhere one looks in Manteo, he sees street names and markers remembering those very first English colonists who came to settle our country, whether he finds himself on Sir Walter Raleigh Street or Croatan Avenue or crossing the Virginia Dare Bridge.  Even "Manteo" itself is the name of the Indian who helped the colonists.  Everywhere we went, my kids would say, "I know that name, Mom!  We read that in a book!"  It can be staggering to think....wow, those first colonists were standing right here 425 years ago, looking at the same barrier island scenery, smelling the same salty air, hearing the same sounds of sea gulls squawking by.

But unfortunately, I don't think the colonists got to taste a cherry chocolate chip ice cream cone from Buck's Homemade Ice Cream shop while they were standing here.  That was some crazy good ice cream!

While in Manteo we grabbed dinner before the show at Darrel's Restaurant.  No sooner had I begun answering my child's question with, "No, honey.  That's not a real fish.  Marlins don't get that big..." than Tim spotted its plaque.

Maybe Jonah got swallowed by a marlin!

 And perhaps to better experience the cuisine of our coastal colonial explorers whom we were about to celebrate through drama, Tim channeled his inner fisherman and ordered the "Whole Flounder, Fried," which is exactly that: a whole flounder, fried with its fins and gills and bones and laid on a plate.  He finished the whole fish without ever choking on or accidentally eating a bone.

His wife was impressed.  :D