OBX - Outer Banks Extreme?

We were very sad to leave Savannah, but as they say in show business, the show (road trip) must go on. Our next stop was the Outer Banks of North Carolina, or otherwise known as OBX. I'm not quite sure where the "X" came from. Maybe to give the place and eXtreme edge, or maybe they spell it Outer Banxs. I'd love to know, so if anybody has any clues, please send back a comment.

In hindsight, it's fitting that there was an "X" at the end of OBX because our plans for the two days in NC were pretty extreme - at least time wise. First, it took us a full day to drive up from Savannah to Morehead City, NC (on the Southern edge of the OBX). We went straight to our hotel and rested up for the big day ahead of us. We had to catch 2 ferries, with total ferry commute time of around 3 hours, the next day for us to get to our hotel at the Northern end of the OBX with the in between highlight being our visit to Ocracoke Island - with beaches that were just rated #1 in the US.

We got up bright and early to drive an hour to Cedar Island to catch the 9:30AM ferry. When we arrived at 9AM, the ferry attendant informed us that one of their ferries had broken down and the next ferry over to Ocracoke would not be until 12 noon. This was a serious blow to our time table, but what could we do. Se we waited. We finally got on the ferry and arrived on the island two and a half hours later. (They don't call it the Outer Banks for nothing).

The town itself was quite small, but awfully cute. We saw kids riding their bikes down the middle of the street, and everybody seemed like they were on their way to the beach. We took that as a cue for us to also head to the much hyped beaches. Our first impression was awe at the quantity of sand on the beach. It was a big beach. When then took a step onto the beach, and marveled at the softness of the sand. We moved on to testing the temperature of the water. Oh, it was like bath water - super warm. We then understood, firsthand, why this beach was ranked #1.

After what seemed like too short of a time, we left to catch our final ferry to Hatteras Village and drive two hours up the heart of the Outer Banks to Kill Devil Hills, NC. Upon our arrival at the hotel, that was right on the beach, we had a choice of upgrading to an ocean view room. We took it. We thoroughly enjoyed our beach front view and the soothing sound of waves crashing that rocked us to sleep.