4 Stops in 300 Miles and Heading South

We finished our Annapolis stay last week and continued heading south. We went to, and toured, Richmond, Jamestown, Williamsburg, Virginia Beach and Norfolk, Va. Today, we landed in the Outer Banks in NC. The driving has been pretty brief. We’ve only been averaging between 45 minutes and an hour fifty minute drive in-between each stop which rocks, We left Annapolis after Brad broke the Yom Kippur fast by downing 20 hard shell crabs and meeting some friends for dinner the next day. Brad’s Cheltenham elementary school friend Jim McNally, who is now the Naval Academy Boxing Coach, and his lovely wife hosted us for cocktails before and aft and generously insisted on picking up the dinner check.. It was awesome catching up. That same afternoon we went back to Baltimore and toured the Big Ships there.

On to Richmond...The State Capitol building was closed but we walked around that and the other government buildings before heading to a 100 acre historic estate called Maymont. It was only okay. The gardens were pretty, the mansion was closed and the bastards locked the gate we came in on and intended on leaving from. Haha! Oh well, the walk did us good! The highlight of the day was our walk over a pedestrian bridge to a historic Island called Belle Isle. It used to be an industrial park as well as a POW camp during the Civil War. It was beautiful. People kayaking, sunbathing on the rocks, and swimming. It was very-very cool. Beautiful as a matter of fact!

Off to a Harvest Host at the Hampton Winery. It was very pretty. The first three pictures below are a taste of it. We were hugely surprised to learn it was only a ten minute drive to a free ferry ride to Jamestown and Williamsburg. We took advantage. We put our bikes, and our car on the ferry and then took a 5 mile bike tour of colonial Williamsburg. Who said nothing is for free? It was! No blacksmiths working this colonial town but we were styling with our E-bikes while all the other humps were walking.

We stayed in a Virginia Beach Campground for four days. The Beach and picnic pics below were from 1st Landing State Park. Some park huh? We brought our bikes with us there and took a pretty substantial trail around the area. The first day we had nice lunch at this restaurant on the Beach. We started outside but then the wind blew us inside. The last day there it was raining so we went indoors to this Military Aviation Museum. Planes and hangars all over the place with ex-pilot/volunteers telling you all about them.

On our last day in Virginia we went to the Norfolk Naval Museum and Battleship Wisconsin. Both were neat. The ship took the cake though over the museum. On our way back from the Naval trip we stopped at a public beach and chilled for an hour or two.

Next stop...North Carolina. 800 miles down and 24,200 more to go. Thanks for reading down this far! Have a great week and Thanks! Kathy and Brad