Our Road Trips

7/29/2015

We packed up early from Laurie Lake RV Park in Cape May, headed to the ferry. It being only a couple of miles made for a quick trip. We got in line and when we got to the booth, the gal said there was room for us on the ship leaving prior to our scheduled time. We drove straight onto the ship...cool. The ride across went well, we never even opened the door of our camper, just stayed on and rode across. A little over 80 mins. later, we were back in Delaware.

We pulled out of line just outside of the terminal parking lot, checked to make sure all was well, and we were on our way. The drive south was going to be another adventure, miles of 2 lane roads, about 30 small towns, a hoard of red lights (we caught at least one in each town it seemed, several in others) and toward the end, it got sort of comical. But we drove on.

We passed through 3 states (NJ, Delaware & Maryland) and part of Virginia before reaching the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel 23 miles north of Virginia Beach, paid our toll ($31) and headed out. The bridge is a wonder all by itself, opened in the 60s and has had millions of cars & trucks in the last 50+ years. There are 2-1 mile long tunnels along the way that are only 2 lanes wide. These pass under the water to allow ship traffic to pass overhead and this gets a little hairy, mirrors passing within inches with semis at 50 mph. But we made it across fine and 5 miles east of the bridge is our destination. Being on the early ferry allowed us to get there too early to check in, but we sat in the parking area with the a/c running and just hung out and waited for our spot to open up at 3 pm.

We got settled in and got as set up as we will for only a 2 night stay. It is pretty hot, so we sort of decided to soak up the a/c and wait a while before walking down to the beach near sunset. Our site is only about 150' from a elevated wood path over the dunes to the beach, about a 1/4 mile total to the waters edge. We walked down far enough to let Barb put her toes in the Chesapeake...pretty cool. We walked back, made some dinner and after watching some TV for the 1st time since NYC, got some much needed sleep.

Yesterday morning, we headed the 8 or so miles to Nauticus, a cool place on Norfolk Harbor, home to the US Navy's largest base. Barb got us tickets for a harbor cruise while I parked the car and we got on the boat a minute or so before sailing. We spent the next 80 mins or so touring the harbor with the Captain narrating what we were looking at. There is going to always be a different group of ships in town, so this cruise will always be different. The USS Wisconsin is in permanent display next to Nautica and open for tours. It is an 888' Battleship that was first put in service in 1944 and served until 1992, having launched the first cruise missiles over Baghdad to start the first Iraq war. The USS Truman was also in port, so all of the support ships of the Carrier Group were also there, including the sub. This brought back some great memories of my trip to meet the USS Kitty Hawk at Pearl Harbor in Dec 1994 while Mark was assigned to her. They were on their way back to San Diego from Japan on WesPac on a 6 month deployment. I met them at Pearl Harbor and rode it back to San Diego, an 8 day ride of a lifetime. I was able to see most of the ship and even got to drive it for a bit one night. I slept in the same berthing as Mark and ate all the same food, etc. It was an amazing experience. Norfolk Harbor is one of the largest natural deep water ports in the world, so touring it is pretty cool. We highly recommend this tour. After we got back, we got a sandwich and then started our tour included in the combo ticket Barb bought for us. Neither of us ever thought there would be so much to see and our walk through Nauticus, as well as the tour of the Wisconsin, took until 500 pm, closing time. We never even started the tour of the museum included at Nauticus...we will have to see that on another trip. This combo pack is a great buy ($33) and highly recommended...great afternoon.

Then, Barb had found us a couple of places to have dinner/happy hour on Virginia Beach oceanfront so drove the 17 miles there, found a parking spot and got a table at Chix Bar & Grill, outside, looking out at the boardwalk & beach that front the Atlantic, around the corner from our campsite. There was a live 4 piece band & a lot of people enjoying the amenities, the beach including a couple of volleyball games, folks walking, biking, skateboarding, you name it, both directions on the boardwalk...lots going on. So we sat & enjoyed a good dinner and listened to the band and watched people...fun time.

We headed back to the camper, watched a little TV and got some sleep. Today, we are moving 3 1/2 hours west, back to Rudd's Creek Campground at Boydton, VA, where we spent the first weekend of this trip. So we will have made a circle. We will be there 3 nights, before moving to West Virginia and hopefully some rest and relaxation in the mountains, where we hope it will be cooler. There is a big heat wave coming for the next few days, so we hope we can escape some of that. Tonight, we are going to drive to Raleigh and spend the evening with our niece Stephanie and her family. On we go.

Steve & Barb Larson