104 miles, 6 hours.

We slept in this morning a little and waited for the Humane Society to call. She called at 8am and said she'd be out within a few hours. That makes sense, since we were basically at the end of the island/peninsula.

She came around 10:30am. Dad had gone out for a ride on the bike, so the three of us were hanging out in the hotel room. As soon as we let the gal in, the cat went into hiding. We spent 20 minutes trying to get the cat out from under the king-size bed. The gal finally picked the cat up by her scruff and inspected her. We learned it was a girl (all tortoiseshells are girls) and she was probably 4-5 months old, based on the teeth. She thanked us over and over for rescuing the cat and went on her way.

So, by the time the Humane Society gal came, then we finished packing, then we waited for Dad to come back from his ride, it was noon. We putted down the road to the ferry terminal and got in line.

This was our first ferry of the trip, and it was a 25-minute free ferry ride from Hatteras to Ocracoke Island. It was a small ferry by Puget Sound standards- it held maybe 30 cars. They loaded our two bikes last so they could use every available inch to crowd vehicles on. It'd be disappointing to be the first car that had to wait for the next ferry!

We then rode down the length of Ocracoke Island. It's basically a 13-mile paved stretch along a narrow barrier island. We could look over the dunes and occasionally see the Atlantic. It was hot, and we certainly thought about stopping for a swim. Instead, we rode into town (Ocracoke) and had a bite to eat at a great little shop.

We then got in line for the "big ferry", which is a 2+ hour ferry from Ocracoke to Cedar Island. It is cheap ($10 per motorcycle) and ours wasn't very full- which is interesting, since the smaller ferry was packed full.

We saw dark storm clouds all morning. The edge of the storm caught up to the ferry and rained a little. Nothing major, though- but we made sure to bring our riding gear inside the ferry so it wouldn't get wet.

After the ferry ride, we rode about an hour on busy country roads to our hotel in Morehead City. Since we were planning on riding to Savannah, GA tomorrow, we had a conversation about whether we should try to ride another couple hours or stop now. We decided to go ahead and stop.

Once we got in the hotel, we realized a couple of things. First, Tamara couldn't find her wallet. We tore through everything while looking for it, then called the ferry offices. This was very time-consuming. The second is that Hurricane Hanna, currently headed for Florida, will make things sort of nasty. So the further south we go, the faster it'll get us wet.

We went to dinner and discussed what to do (and where to go) next. By the time we get to Savannah, the weather will be turning ugly. So we won't get much time there, and we'll have a lot of transit time to go back north (since Mom and Dad fly out on Thursday). So where to go? The next city down the coast is Wilmington. It has a WW2 battleship open for tours. Perfect! What else? Maybe an aquarium and a maritime museum? Okay, that'll work.

On the wallet front, we spent a couple hours looking, searching, and calling. No dice. At least I have my wallet and cards, and Tamara has her passport.

The mouse/touchpad on my laptop has been acting up for a while. Right clicks don't work, left clicks either don't register or they come in as right clicks, and it'll right-click on its own occasionally. I have a small USB mouse- plugging it in meant the mouse and the touchpad would work most of the time, but the wires in the mouse must be getting frayed- it would shut off, and moving the wires would fix it. We've had it since we were in Mexico, so it's seen a lot of use and wear.

So, I went to Wal-Mart (ugh, I know!) and bought a cheap replacement mouse. I also went in to the settings on the laptop and disabled the trackpad buttons. Now they both work very consistently, though I miss my functioning trackpad.