Outer Banks Articles & Shorts - Issue 11: Summer 2016

PUBLISHER’S LETTER

Outer Banks This Week - Summer 2016 - Issue 11Take a moment to see how many songs you can think of about summer. (Wait, don’t read my list here until you’ve done your own mental inventory.) Hot Fun in the Summertime, Summer Breeze, School’s Out, All Summer Long, Summer Nights, Summertime, Summer in the City, Summertime Blues, In the Summertime, Summer of ’42 … ok, that’s all I can come up with off the top of my head. How’d you do? I find it interesting that there are so many songs about this time of year. If we were to attempt the same exercise about any other season, I don’t think we’d come up with as many. 

Summer is our season in a way that gets into our skin, and I don’t mean only sun-kissed bodies. We wear summer with many fewer barriers than winter. We open ourselves up to the warmth, the sand, to Mother Ocean without the arm’s length that often comes with cold. We dive in and let summer surround us. Perhaps that’s why we celebrate it so in song (and in poem too, btw). It’s a primal season, and we get back to our roots under the summer sun.

Those of us who live here deeply understand this pull, and it makes sense to us that the thousands of visitors who come to swim in the ocean and merge with nature are looking for what we locals chose to live around. We make room for them and know that the same filling up the soul process we experience every day of summer is theirs for the week or two they’re here. There’s more than enough to go around.

We’re so excited to bring you this Summer Issue of OuterBanksThisWeek.com magazine. It’s filled with stories about local businesses that give you a better insight into who they are vs. only what they do. You learn about the people behind the business and their motivations. As always, we hugely enjoy co-creating with these business owners and appreciate their enthusiasm and their trust in letting us help to get their word out to locals and visitors. 

Since our feature story is about novels set on the Outer Banks — and there are so many you need to read! — we encourage you to grab a chair, umbrella, some cold drinks and your favorite local book and head to that warm sandy beach to read away a summer day. You’ll feel renewed!

Happy summer, everyone!

VIEW A DIGITAL VERSION OF THIS ISSUE

Creative in the Kitchen

By Lexi Holian
Here ’s a food tasting experience unlike anything else you will find on the Outer Banks. I’m talking bold and unexpected flavors that make up one of the most incredible lunch and dinner menus in Avon — or anywhere. The crew at Open Water Grill decided long ago that there was too much similarity in the Outer Banks... Read More

We’re Free! Free Falling!

By Heather Frese
Skydiving. The word conjures palpitations of excitement, visions of free-falling through the air. Say the word and you can almost feel the adrenaline pulsing through your veins, the jolting pop of an opening parachute as it arcs overhead and you float gently down until your feet once again touch the ground. Whether it... Read More

Raising the Bar for Medical Care at Sentara Urgent Care

By Katrina Mae Leuzinger
The name Sentara carries certain expectations with it. Sentara is well established, with more than 300 medical facilities in Virginia and Northeastern North Carolina ranging from hospitals to therapy centers to primary and urgent care centers. Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, which includes the Sentara Heart Hospital... Read More

Bottled on the Outer Banks

By Lexi Holian
Have you ever heard the story behind the name of Kill Devil Hills? Legend has it that during the height of piracy on the Outer Banks, ships were losing their cargo to sandbars and marauders on the water, and one day the locals discovered beached barrels of rum with contents strong enough to kill the devil. Okay, that... Read More

Experience the Outer Banks Like Never Before

By Lexi Holian
Picture yourself on the shores of the Outer Banks (even if you’re here already). Sweeping visions of sea and sound are likely first to enter your mind, followed by memories in your favorite oceanfront family retreat. But what else do you see? For some, it’s the Colonial Spanish Mustangs of Corolla, magnificent and... Read More