Mandatory Evacuation of Ocracoke Island!

Ah, I loooooooooooove hurricanes. Hurricane Earl is heading to North Carolina, near my old stomping ground. I remember how excited I would get about tropical storms and hurricanes, though I never witnessed a hurricane first hand the years I lived on the Outer Banks, just lots of tropical storms, which were pretty exciting too. I remember my boss letting me leave work to go watch the surf from tropical storm Gustav - just awesome!



Overwash fans are the coolest. Here is one from Hurricane Isabel in 2003 on Ocracoke Island. I visited there shortly after the storm and was just in awe of the overwash fans and dune breaches. Hurricane Earl is now threatening Ocracoke Island. It'll be interesting to see the impact that it has.

For those of you unfamiliar with Ocracoke Island, it is part of Cape Hatteras National Seashore. It is a natural barrier island with some of the most beautiful beaches on the East Coast. To reach Ocracoke, you must leave from the town of Hatteras by ferry and cross Hatteras Inlet. To learn more about Ocracoke, visit http://www.ocracokevillage.com/.

Shift Happens

Beer!

As a homebrewer and beer lover, I came across this site that will be quite useful, http://beermapping.com/. This is the website for the Beer Mapping project. By using this site, you can find brewpubs all over the world. You can search by country or by city. This is a must for any traveler! Check it out!

"Without geography, you're nowhere." -Author Unknown

This semester we are going to embark on a journey. This journey will take us all over the world to learn about landscapes, cultures, history, economics, and politics. You might be asking yourself, “Didn’t I sign up for a world geography class; I don’t remember signing up for a history class, a government class, or an economics class.” Our geographic journey will have us exploring all the regions of the world and examining their cultures, populations, history, and physical settings. Understanding geography and the history of locations can help us better understand what is happening in today’s world affairs.

To that end, my hope is to expose you to ways of learning about the world and what is happening in countries that we might now hear much about in our mainstream news. Through your blog, I encourage you to research other regions of the world that interest you and blog about what you are learning and your reactions to what is happening around the globe. Also, read your fellow classmates blogs and comment on what they have to say. Let’s get a conversation started about the geographic issues that interest YOU!