There's something alluring about flying near the same strip of land that the Wright brothers used to launch their first aircraft in 1903. Just up the road from my hang gliding school was the site where Orville and Wilbur first parted with Earth. Soaring (perhaps sputtering) over the soft sandy beaches, their first glide lasted only 12 seconds and went 120 feet.

My first flight in a hang glider went about the same distance, and it left me with the same feeling they must have felt, the overwhelming urge to do it again. The Wright brothers made over a thousand flights from the top of Kill Devil Hill. I made only three, in the sand dunes a few miles south of those hallowed grounds. But I came away understanding the synergy between man and nature — and the history shaped by these two forces — in the birthplace of America.

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