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Flight Guide to the Centennial
by Sean Fulton | Photography by NC Division of Tourism, Film and Sports Development
After honoring the centennial of modern aviation in December at Kitty Hawk, keep the celebration going by flying over to one of these five nearby mid-Atlantic destinations.
In mid-December, pilots and aviation buffs from all over the world will converge on the Outer Banks of North Carolina to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the day the Wright Brothers took their monumental 59-second flight.
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Photo: Courtesy of Eckert & Eckert; Circles, Top to Bottom: Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce; Outer Banks Visitors Bureau; NC Division of Tourism, Film and Sports Development
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The five-day event on Kill Devil Hills, a few miles south of Kitty Hawk, gives us all an opportunity to reflect on and applaud the achievements of those who made our own general aviation adventures possible. And what better way to honor their spirit than to get in your own plane and fly to another great mid-Atlantic destination to continue the celebration?
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We’ve picked five fun, family-friendly destinations in the vicinity of Kitty Hawk (the Centennial Celebration site, which we’ve also profiled below) that are sufficiently diverse to thrill every personality in your party. These destinations probably won’t show up on any commercial airline’s frequent flyer program, but all are easily accessible by general aviation airplane through a number of good, local airports. Whether you’re into golf clubs or club cars, wood furniture or wooded trails, there’s something here for everyone to enjoy.
First Flight Centennial Celebration
Kitty Hawk, NC: ECG, MQI
At times during this aviation centennial year, it may feel as if every city where the Wright Brothers ever stopped to use the restroom has set itself up as some sort of “cradle of aviation.” But there’s no questioning one town’s bona fides: Kitty Hawk is the real deal. If you want to touch the ground where the first powered flight landed, make the trip to Kill Devil Hills and feel the wind in your face, the sand in your eyes, and the thrill of history revisited.
The celebration kicks off Dec. 12 at the Wright Brothers Memorial with flying activities aimed at children, and culminates on Dec. 17 at 10:35 a.m. Experimental Aircraft Association’s reproduction of the original Wright Flyer is scheduled to re-create that famous first flight.
The Beach Boys will perform on Saturday, Dec. 13, followed by The Temptations on Dec. 14. Ray Charles was scheduled to perform as well, but canceled for health reasons. Military aircraft designers and historic military airplanes take the spotlight on Dec. 15; on Dec. 16, 100 individuals who have contributed to the growth of aviation during the past 100 years will be honored.
A 100-airplane fly-by and an appearance by Chuck Yeager will follow the historic re-creation of the first flight on Dec. 17.
Tickets to all events are $10 per day for adults; children under 12 are admitted free, but must have a ticket.
Get your tickets online through the National Park Service at www.wrightbrothers.reserveworld.com.
It is expected that First Flight Airport (FFA) will be mobbed, and pilots are encouraged to make parking and car rental arrangements well in advance at either Elizabeth City (ECG) or Dare County Regional (MQI) airports.
The Outer Banks Visitors' Bureau is coordinating lodging requests, including vacation rental homes at $125 to $200 per week, and hotels and motels from $40 to $300 per night. There are a number of inns and campgrounds in the area as well.
Keep in mind that before the Wright Brothers’ arrival, the tiny strip of windswept land that makes up the outer banks was well known as a fishing and vacation spot. Although December is rather chilly for swimming, there are still miles of scenic vistas and plenty of historic seaside spots to visit after you’ve turned your attention from the skies.
For planning information, visit www.firstflightcentennial.org, www.firstflight.org, www.centennialofflight.gov, www.outerbanks.org, www.nps.gov/wrbr/index.htm.
Mammoth Cave
Cave City, KY: GLW
What goes up must come down, so why not drill way down after your Kitty Hawk visit with an exploration of the inner earth at Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave? With more than 336 underground miles mapped to date, it’s the largest underground cave system in the world.
Millions of years of limestone erosion created the network of underground nooks and crannies that make up Mammoth Cave, which holds artifacts that date back more than 12,000 years. Its first modern use was as a mine for saltpeter, which was used to make gunpowder during the War of 1812.
The cave was briefly used as a hospice for tuberculosis patients in 1842, when doctors felt the uniform climate of 54 degrees might cure the disease. By the 1850s, the cave had become a popular tourist destination; the federal government assumed responsibility for its care in the 1940s.
Unique features of the cave system include rivers filled with eyeless fish, a “bottomless pit” more than 100 feet deep, and a special “mobility impaired” tour that accommodates visitors in wheelchairs.
While most visitors arrive by car (it’s a 90-minute drive from the nearest major airport), GA families can fly practically caveside, landing at nearby Glasgow Airport, in Cave City.
There are three campgrounds within the 80-square-mile park at Mammoth Cave, as well as one hotel on premises and outposts of several major hotel chains nearby. Local restaurants are plentiful, featuring everything from steak to BBQ.
The area is also home to the quarter-mile Alpine Slide, where visitors can take a chairlift to the mountain top and then race downhill on specially made go-carts that ride in cement tracks.
When you resurface after exploring the cave, you’ll find the area’s generally mild December climate most agreeable for fishing, hiking and biking on the wilderness trails.
For more information, visit www.nps.gov/maca/ or www.cavecity.com/.
Home Furnishings Capital Of The World
High Point, NC: GSO
Although it’s a safe bet many kids will get a little restless here, High Point continually quickens the pulse of style-conscious adults who visit the home of the International Home Furnishings Market, the largest furniture event in the world.
High Point (so named because it was the apex on the North Carolina railroad) hosted the first International Home Furnishings Market nearly 100 years ago. Since then, attendance at the twice-yearly show has grown to 80,000, with more than 3,000 exhibitors. The next gathering takes place in mid-October, but the event has had such an impact on the area that furniture has become its main industry all year round. Decorators and dealers from all over the world make pilgrimages to this scenic region to do business, keep up with trends and rub elbows with their peers.
Visitors can explore dozens of local furniture stores and galleries or stop by the Bernice Bienenstock Furniture Library for a fascinating history lesson.
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Making plans with friends and family? Book your rooms and car rentalas with us. Visit our Concierge. |
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It’s not all a lost cause for kids: The Furniture Discovery Center is a museum that offers an educational, hands-on look at what it takes to make and market furniture. One charmer they’ll discover is Harvey Hardwood, a 500-lb. talking red oak.
They may also enjoy seeing the world’s largest chest of drawers, a High Point building modeled to mirror an 18th century furniture style, constructed in 1926.
High Point is also the home of Bill Davis Racing, the 2002 Daytona 500 champions; tours of the facility will rev up any racing fan’s pulse.
Like any popular tourist destination, High Point has its mix of restaurants ranging from fine dining to fast food, and there are plenty of accommodations.
Additional local attractions include an historic Quaker plantation, a 10-acre corn field that has been transformed into an outdoor maze, and a museum that explores the region’s gold-mining history.
For more information, visit www.highpoint.org, www.furnituremarket.org/restaurants.asp, www.billdavisracing.com, www.shopandstay.com.
Great Smoky Mountains
NC/TN: RHP, 1A5, 22W, AVL
For outdoor fun, there’s no place quite like the Great Smoky Mountains. Because of its size, geography and remote location, this range at the foot of the Appalachians and just southwest of the Blue Ridge Mountains, has preserved a diversity of rare plant and animal life.
It is a unique environmental classroom, one in which a walk from valley to mountain peak provides the same range of environmental conditions as if you had started in that same valley and walked 1,250 miles north.
Winding, wooded roads, dirt trails, more than a dozen scenic waterfalls, and some of the most beautiful vistas in the world make this a great choice for hiking and camping. The Park Service estimates there are more than 4,000 unique species of plants growing on more than 500,000 acres here; the Service offers a number of programs throughout the park, each focusing on a unique aspect of the environment.
If you’re more interested in the history of man than agriculture, the Smoky Mountains also offers historic buildings and artifacts of the southern Appalachian lifestyle of the 18th and 19th centuries. More than one visitor has come across present-day hillbillies who still call the mountains home.
While there are many hotels and motels in and around the mountains, try renting a cabin on the mountain for a genuine Smokies experience. Prices range from $70 to $200 per night during December, when the temperatures are generally mild.
Before aviation, the United States relied on trains, and the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad at Dillsboro and Bryson City, N.C., is one of the most historic remnants of that history. It dates back to the early days of North Carolina logging, which was the region’s main industry from the 1890s until the park was created in 1934. Over the years, rail service declined and by 1988, much of the track in the Smoky Mountains region had been abandoned.
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The Great Smoky Mountains Railroad was then created to provide transportation and scenic rail tours along 53 miles of track winding through the North Carolina side of the mountains. The railroad uses four modern, diesel-electric locomotives and one Baldwin steam locomotive.
Over the years, the rail line and its beautifully restored club cars have appeared in the movies, including Forces of Nature, Paradise Falls, and, perhaps most memorably, the infamous escape scene in The Fugitive with Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones.
Prices for tours range from $14 to $75 per person, and children are welcome.
The mountains are close to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. Gatlinburg is home to Cooter’s Place, the official museum of The Dukes of Hazzard TV series, run by Cooter himself, Ben Jones. Pigeon Forge is home to Dolly Parton’s theme park, Dollywood, which is ranked as one of the top 50 amusement parks in the world.
Airports with easy access to the mountains include Andrews-Murphy (RHP), Macon County (1A5), Transylvania County (22W) and Asheville (AVL), which is about an hour away by car.
For more information, visit www.gsmr.com, www.cootersplace.com, www.dollywood.com, www.gatlinburg.com, www.nps.gov/grsm/gsmsite/home/, www.thesmokies.com.
The Grand Strand
Myrtle Beach, SC: MYR, CRE
This region of the United States needs no introduction to golfers. In the chilly month of December especially, golf takes center stage with comfortable temperatures in the 50s and 60s.
The Myrtle Beach area boasts more than 120 championship golf courses that are open all year round, the most prestigious of which is undoubtedly The Dunes Golf & Beach Club. Perched on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, the course was designed by Robert Trent Jones and is regularly picked as one of Golf Digest’s top 100 courses. The Dunes has hosted six Senior Tour Championships, a Women’s U.S. Open and the finals of PGA Tour Qualifying School. Also well-established are the Tidewater Golf Club & Plantation, which is consistently rated as one of the best courses in Myrtle Beach, and the Arnold Palmer-designed King’s North at Myrtle Beach National. All three of these courses offer excellent challenges for men and women of all skill levels. The Myrtle Beach area is even a mecca for the miniature golfer: from Myrtle Beach to North Myrtle Beach to the connecting tiny hamlets that line Route 17, which runs along the coast, it seems there’s a mini-golf facility on nearly every corner—you’ll find more windmills here than in Denmark.
Hundreds of hotels line the oceanfront, ranging in price and quality from the luxurious, recently renovated Hilton Myrtle Beach Resort with its own private golf course in North Myrtle Beach, to lower-priced hotels and motels in Myrtle Beach proper, about 15 miles to the south. Coincidentally, almost all offer unparalleled views of the water and easy access to many fine restaurants at all price points.
For the best seafood, visit Murrells Inlet or Georgetown, both of which are an easy drive up Route 17 from Myrtle Beach.
The best advice for non-golfers is to come back during the warmer months, when you can enjoy a full range of beachside amusements on miles of clean, white sand. In December, your choices are more limited: NASCAR visits the
Myrtle Beach Speedway, and there’s fishing from either pier or boat from several points along the coast from Myrtle Beach to Wilmington.
For more information, visit www.myrtlebeachgolf.com, www.myrtlebeach.com, www.grandstrand.com.
Shenandoah Valley
Staunton/Waynesboro/Harris, VA: SHD
If you can’t choose between the natural beauty of the Great Smoky Mountains or clambering around the darkened caves of Mammoth Cave, then a visit to Shenandoah Valley might be the best way to round out your First Flight vacation.
Nestled between the Allegheny and Blue Ridge mountain ranges, the Shenandoah Valley is home to dozens of locally famous underground caverns, and acres of preserved natural forest.
Shenandoah National Park protects nearly 200,000 acres as a nature sanctuary, providing a home to a wide variety of wild animals, fish, and some 200 species of birds. The region features more than a dozen caverns of all types including the famous Luray Caverns, which house the world’s only “stalacpipe organ.” Invented in 1954 by a mathematician, this musical instrument encompasses more than three acres underground and produces sound by gently tapping rubber-tipped mallets on hundreds of stalactites.
Other, no less spectacular caves include Shenandoah Caverns, Skyline Caverns and Endless Caverns.
The oddities of the soft limestone geology even include a 100-million-year-old, 90-foot-wide natural bridge of rock and earth that spans a narrow gorge. The bridge, which was created by erosion from a creek, was first surveyed by George Washington in 1750, and is known as one of the seven wonders of the world.
By December, visitors typically are able to enjoy skiing at one of the area’s four resorts,
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Planning your trip to any of these fun destinations? Visit our concierge to help with your planning arrangements.
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although the natural snowfall is significantly less than what you would find in New England, Colorado, Montana or Utah. Historic villages and antiques and local crafts stores are also here, awaiting intrepid explorers’ discovery.
Thomas Jefferson’s famed homestead, Monticello, is here, as is Ash Lawn-Highland, which was James Monroe’s home. Woodrow Wilson’s birthplace is in this gentle valley, as is the Statler Brothers Museum.
Some of the nicest accommodations include the Frederick House, which actually combines several restored townhouses from the early 1800s in the center of historic Staunton; the Shenvalee Golf Resort in New Market; the Wintergreen Resort, an exclusive golf and ski property that features fireplaces in almost every room; and the Massanutten golf and ski resort in Harrisonburg. You can also stay at the Natural Bridge Inn and Conference Center, which is built on property adjacent to the bridge.
For more information, visit www.wintergreenresort.com, www.naturalbridgeva.com, www.frederickhouse.com, www.shenvalee.com, www.massresort.com, www.luraycaverns.com, www.statlerbrothers.com.
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