This series of Everyday Conversations is about a family traveling to each of the 50 states in the U.S. Join the family members as they learn about local pastimes and history. These conversations are for intermediate-level English-language learners or higher.
In this conversation, the family visits the Outer Banks in North Carolina.
Sam: I didn’t realize we’d have to take a ferry to get to the Outer Banks.
Paul: Of course. The Outer Banks is a long string of peninsulas and islands.
Claudine: And the place of the Wright brothers’ first successful flight!
Paul: That’s right. But we’re going to Cape Hatteras National Seashore, so we’ll be seeing more nature than airplanes.
Claudine: There must be a lot of great sea life here.
Gina: Yes, and if we’re lucky we can see the baby sea turtles returning to the sea after they hatch.
Sam: They’re born on the beach?
Gina: Yes. The mother digs a hole with her back flippers, lays her eggs and covers them. After the baby turtles hatch, they walk across the sand into the ocean.
Claudine: Wow, little baby turtles are brave.
Now let’s review the vocabulary.
A ferry is a boat that carries people and things across a river or narrow part of the sea.
The Outer Banks is an area of North Carolina. It is a long line of peninsulas and islands off the coast of North Carolina and a small part of Virginia.
A peninsula is an area of land that is almost entirely surrounded by water but is connected to a larger land area.
The Wright brothers were two brothers (Wilbur Wright and Orville Wright) who successfully built and flew the first powered airplane.
Cape Hatteras National Seashore is a U.S. national seashore within the Outer Banks area. A national seashore is an area of land along the sea that is protected by the U.S. government.
To hatch means to be born by coming out of an egg.
On a turtle, the two flippers are flat parts of its body that are used for moving and swimming.
The verb to lay means that a reptile, bird, etc., produces an egg from its body.
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