Outer Banks and lighthouses

O.C. Stonestreet - 

From the Bodie Island Lighthouse, it is only a 40-mile drive to what is probably the best known lighthouse in America, the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse at Buxton.

But before you get to Hatteras, you pass through Rodanthe and Salvo. Rodanthe was the setting for the 2009 Richard Gere and Diane Lane motion picture, "Nights in Rodanthe," and was filmed in part at what some say is the oldest house in that community. Before the hamlet became a Hollywood locale, it was known as one of the few places that still celebrated Christmas on its old date, Jan. 6. There is also something about a mythical creature called "Old Buck" which is said to be part of the Yule celebration in Rodanthe.

Rodanthe is also notable as being the easternmost point of North Carolina. Consult an atlas and you will notice that Rodanthe, at about 75 degrees and 28 minutes west of Greenwich, England, is on that part of the Outer Banks which juts farthest out into the Atlantic. Going eastward, the nearest landfall is the island of Bermuda.

The Outer Banks vary in width, so as you drive along N.C. 12 at times you can see the Atlantic on one side of you and Pamlico Sound on the other.

The community of Salvo was known to trivia experts as being home to one of the smallest post offices — some claim it to be the second smallest — in the United States. I have since learned that the original 8-by-12-foot building was destroyed by an arsonist in 1992 and that the building that is there now is a replacement post office that stays true to the original. It was so small that the postmaster had to step outside to change his mind. The smallest post office in the country is said to be a 7-by-8-foot one in Ochopee, Fla., in the Everglades.

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