Earlier this month, I visited Southern part of USA, and now I am in Taiwan.   I need catch up on some travel blogs.  During the US driving trip, I rented a car in New Orleans, and drove the SE region.  I visited Savannah (Georgia), Charleston (South Carolina), Biltmore Estate, Outer Bank and Kitty Hawk (North Carolina) and Fisherman Island (Virginia).  I am describing the Kitty Hawk stop today, the highlight of the trip to me, and will detail the other stops later.

 As some of you already know, Kitty Hawk is the place where the airplane was invented almost 110 years ago.   The Wright Brothers flew the world’s first successful heavier-than-air plane here. All the planes in the world now are based on the concept they invented.

This is the main museum building.

There are several models of the planes the Wright Brothers test flew. 

During the day, there are talks and movies.  She was quite a good speaker and demonstrated the three smart inventions ideas by the Wright Brothers.   They owned a bicycle renting shop in Ohio, and many of the parts of the plane were actually bike parts. 

This is another building which house hands-on exhibits and a hall that show movies. 

This is a life-size model of the sheds that the Wright Brothers braved the wind and cold weather for several years before finally they succeeded.  They lived in Ohio, and would travel here (three train rides and two ferry rides away) and stayed here for a month or so every year to try out their ideas.  That must be an expensive hobby.  They selected here because it is remote (so the press would not know of their failed attempts), windy (needed to fly gliders that would help them finetune the shape of the plane and mechanical controls), and sandy ( to soften the crash landings). 

The rock at the front marks the starting place where they launched the flights.  The rocks further away marked the distances of their flight attempts.  The first rock was about 100 ft., the next 120 ft and so on.  If you look closely, there is a rock way at the end which marked the final attempt, about 850 ft away.  

It was starting to rain hard, and everyone went back to the museum buildings.  I was alone, and I start to  imagine the feeling of the history-making event over 100 years ago and how it changed the world. I wanted to make the most of my visit.   I walked from the launch point to the first marker.  I was soaking wet from the rain!   Then I decided to walk all the way to the 850 foot mark.  Suddenly, I did not know what made me do it.  I stretched my hands wide to my side, pretending they were wings, and imagined myself flying along with the Wright Brothers.  I would close my eyes briefly to sense the wind sound blowing by, and start running faster and faster.  It was fun!   I told myself, think back 100 years and feel the experience of first man in the world flying. That is the excitement moment of a "virgin" experience? lol.  Some people must have thought I was crazy!  A grown man acted like a kid, with arms outstretched, pretending to be a plane, hehe. Think back, I am smiling, as it was great fun feeling.  I was in my own little world, enjoying the moment.

Afterwards, I walked back a hundred feet and video tape the path so I can share with my Xanga friends. Here is the video!  Can you imaging yourself flying with me on our first flight of mankind? lol.

Here is the marker at the 852 ft location!  Welcome to the Stevew918 airline.  Safe landing!  Hope you enjoyed the trip!

(Note from yesterday: oops, run out of time to complete blog, will update later today.)