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This week, we're on a family trip to Rodanthe, North Carolina. The video is from our rental house deck.
We've been vacationing in the Outer Banks for over thirty years. When the kids were smaller and liked to body surf, we would go all the way down to Avon or Frisco, where the beach is milder and the waves have a longer run-in. More recently, we've been going to Rodanthe. We found a rental house that fulfilled my husband's long-time dream of watching the surf wash up to the deck, and we've been there for the last few years.
This is probably our last year in this house--which we have loved. So far, it's perfectly sound, but the houses on both sides have already been emptied and slated for demolition, and the water is already washing up not just to the deck, but all the way under the house. (We're gritting our teeth a bit for Friday night, when high winds are forecast to drive the surf even further--we'll be moving the cars out to the parallel street, just to be safe.)
I love the Outer Banks and we try to be responsible tourists (buying from locals and not chains, recycling, eating local seafood) but I don't know how often we'll be able to return.
If you can access this Post story, scroll down to the photo with the caption "A North Carolina transportation department worker clears sand that has washed over another Rodanthe street," and you'll see the house that we're in, directly behind the yellow bulldozer.
Excerpt:
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At least a dozen more houses in Rodanthe remain in serious danger of falling into the ocean. Faced with shrinking options, numerous homeowners are scrambling to move their homes — at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars — further from the tides that seem to creep ever closer. They have filed permits, lined up contractors and teamed up with neighbors, all in a bid to buy more time from the encroaching sea.
As similar shifts befall other communities, scientists say, millions of acres of U.S. land and hundreds of thousands of homes and offices could slip below swelling tide lines over time. Properties in vulnerable areas could lose value, harming homeowners and sapping local tax bases.
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www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2023/obx-rodanthe-erosion-rising-sea-levels/
2 days ago
We love the Outer Banks, too. Thanks for sharing the article. It’s hard to see the houses going into the ocean.
I get the nostalgia, but that seems like a very uncomfortable way to spend a vacation. We used to vacation on Cisco beach on Nantucket. Those houses are all gone now. It’s sad.
Wow! Very sad. We had vacation off the coast of New Jersey for years and the last hurricane that came through definitely altered the beaches and homes where we used to go. 
So beautiful
So very beautiful thanks for shreing
We are camping in Cape Hatteras this weekend. The weather is not desirable, but we love being cozied up in our camper just a dune away from the ocean.
Wow. Thank you for sharing. Rodanthe has been on my bucket list.
Ohhh. Memories! We used to stay up in Nag's Head at the Sand Dollar (no longer there), right on the beach like this. (That was in the 70's.) I can't do city beaches! Have a lovely time.
There are places on the coast of Washington where this has happened and still happening. Scary people still build there but they do. 🤷♀️
Excellent
A bit of fun silliness to start out the weekend.
SO MANY GAMES.
Makes me wonder what your family plays (and what the family-specific rules are). In board games, we're probably fondest here of Citadels (but everyone has to create and use a character voice that matches their card) and Dixit (but you have to keep remarking how the artists are probably French). Then there's also our non-board-game go-to, which is Nerf darts with practically no regulations EXCEPT that everyone has to yell DEATH BARBIES while they shoot each other. (The origins of this has something to do with my daughter, but I'm not exactly sure why.)
The Rules of the Games in Tudor England | Nicholas Orme
www.laphamsquarterly.org
How to play mumble-the-peg, mumchance, and hurling to the country.1 week ago
In our home Monopoly is THE game. Our daughter began the tradition of 'butt money' when she was 9, hiding money under her thigh. Negotiating tactics can be brutal while movie quotes are thrown around like confetti.
It helps with perspective to realize that we are not the only country struggling with how to teach our history.
From the London Times, in case you can't get past a paywall.
Curious to hear any reactions.
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A group of 250 Indian historians are protesting at the rewriting of history textbooks to conform to what they describe as the ruling party’s ideological bias.
They said deleting sections on topics including India’s Muslim rulers was part of the Narendra Modi government’s “partisan agenda” to remove “chapters which do not fit into the larger ideological orientation of the present ruling dispensation”.
History is at the heart of India’s culture wars, with politicians still arguing over figures from the past. For the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) the most glorious period is that of ancient Hindu India. However, it reviles the time from the 16th to the 19th century when India was ruled by Muslim Mughals.
Nationalists abhor them as “oppressors”, even though most were born and are buried in India. Earlier chapters on the Mughals have been erased from new editions of history and political science textbooks for secondary schools issued by the National Council of Educational Research and Training.
According to The Indian Express newspaper, mention of the deadly 2002 riots in Gujarat, which took place when Modi governed the state, has also vanished.
Earlier versions of the textbooks did mention the riots, which left 1,000 Muslims dead, and the fact that Modi was admonished over the violence by the BJP prime minister of the time, Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
References to Mahatma Gandhi’s dislike of Hindu nationalists and desire for unity among Hindus and Muslims have also gone. Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu nationalist, Nathuram Godse, in 1948
The ostensible reason proffered for the rewriting was that schoolchildren had lost a lot of time because of the pandemic and truncated textbooks were a way to lighten their load.
Since the changes have already been made, the statement of protest by the 250 historians is likely to have no effect. BJP leaders have also spoken openly of wishing to rewrite history as they see it, rather than as portrayed by historians belonging to what they see as the liberal and secular elite. Gopal Krishna Agarwal, the BJP national spokesman, said as much when he told Reuters that the altered textbooks were an effort to correct the “biased approach” of some historians.
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Modi ‘erasing India’s Muslim past from textbooks’
www.thetimes.co.uk
A group of 250 Indian historians are protesting at the rewriting of history textbooks to conform to what they describe as the ruling party’s ideological bias.Th1 week ago
Teach our history? Heck goes beyond that. Several of my overseas friends call us a banana republic, as we don't seem to be able to get current event information with any genuine honesty, much less history. What's even more interesting is, when the facts come out, few seem to care - btw that's regardless of what side people take.
I am not a fan of rewriting textbooks History needs to be shared and let the person form their response to the written text
Well,history can only be good history when it is written with truth,facts,justly and honestly no matter how bad,unfair,hurting it was.in hope that future generations learn from it,correct mistakes and avoid them.so it is unfair to write it for pleasure and ommiting facts because you don't like them.facts are facts and truth is truth just as lies are lies.