For Thanksgiving, I spent time in Jockey’s Ridge State Park on the Outer Banks in North Carolina. Jockey’s Ridge is a good place to hike on the sand dunes and go to the beach, which is exactly what my friends and I did.
The beach at Jockey’s Ridge State Park could not be more different than Centennial Wood. While both are right on the edge of busy areas and surrounded by a neighborhood, Jockey’s Ridge has wide sand dunes and few trees. It also opens up to the Albemarle Sound instead of a small creek like Centennial Brook. Where Centennial Brook is a freshwater environment with little to no wildlife, the Albemarle Sound is a saltwater environment home to sharks, dolphins, many different species of fish, and occasionally manatees in the winter. Jockey’s Ridge is also home to many different bird species, similar to Centennial Woods, but there is not much wildlife as most of the wildlife lives in the woods surrounding the Sand Dunes. Finally, Jockey’s Ridge’s landscape is often changing based on different storms and how they shift the dunes.
