I returned yesterday from a wonderful vacation in the OUTER BANKS of North Carolina, which is where the Wright Brothers made their first flight in 1903 (to be specific, at a sand dune in Kill Devil Hills, now the Wright Brothers National Monument).
Seventy-three of you realized that the entries around the "outer" part of the grid (e.g., Swiss, chase, blood) each made a phrase when joined with the word "bank" --> OUTER BANKS.
Our randomly drawn winner is Anita & Steve, and this week's prize is a splendid book called "First Flight: The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Airplane," which I purchased on Friday at our visit to the aforementioned National Monument.
Thank you all for solving!
Tamara did this beautiful reveal using photos from our vacation: clockwise from upper left, me descending the Bodie Island Lighthouse (30 seconds after we walked out onto the balcony, the ranger clocked the wind at 35 mph and ordered us back inside); the Wright Brothers plane; view over the Atlantic Ocean from our cottage; sunrise over heavy surf.