June 18, 2019
When you absolutely have to be somewhere, drive… The forecast was for some isolated thunderstorms on Tuesday and scattered thunderstorms on Wednesday. I was fairly certain we would be able to fly to Accomack, VA on Tuesday, but was concerned we might not be able to fly back on Wednesday. Kathy had to be on her way to Raleigh to catch an early flight on Thursday and getting stuck on the Eastern Shore was not a chance I wanted to take. So… we drove, but there would still be planes involved on day 8.
It is a beautiful drive, through rolling hills, forests, peanut fields, and across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. The Bay Bridge Tunnel is a little over 15 miles, crossing the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. The bridge spans are broken up by two tunnels that are each about a mile long and go down under the bay to allow ships to move in and out of the bay. If you are wondering, yes I successfully held my breath in the tunnels, no the boys were not successful, and yes my wife thought it was ridiculous that I did it when I was the driver…
We met some friends of my son’s, really they were like a second set of parents while he was serving on the Eastern Shore, and wandered out to the Chesapeake Bay, just a short walk from their house. After visiting them for a bit we left to get in more visits. Austin played some football (a long awaited rematch) with some kids that he had baptized while he was there, we stopped at a park to visit another young man that he had baptized, we tried to go the Island Creamery on Chincoteague Island (but the line was about 30 people long) and we headed back to his friends for an amazing dinner and wonderful visit. They are some of the finest people I have ever met.
When we got back to their house there was a storm rolling in across the bay, so of course the boys and I made the short walk out to watch it come in. We stood there, leaning into the wind with a few rain drops falling. Storms come in fast and furious across the Chesapeake Bay, and when the rain arrived, it came with a vengeance and we sprinted for the house, arriving back laughing and soaking wet.
June 19, 2019
After breakfast and goodbye hugs we went stopped by a rest home to visit a member that he knew before beginning the drive back to Greenville, NC.
On the way back we thought we would stop by the Cape Henry Lighthouse in Virginia Beach. If you were going to the Cape Henry Lighthouse it would make sense to first stop at the Visitor Information Center, right? Of course it would, which is what we did. It was $7 to get into the parkinglot (which I figured wasn’t bad, we were going to see the lighthouse) but when we got to the Visitor Information Center we found it was just a little place with some decent historical displays, but no light house access. That’s right, to get to the lighthouse you have to drive to Fort Story, pay another $10/ea, and after getting on base ride a shuttle bus to and from the lighthouse. We were under some time constraints and $40 to see the lighthouse seemed steep, so we decided to pass and instead found some beach access to walk out to the ocean.
By this point it was lunch time and we were getting hungry. As we drove further south along Pacific Ave I heard the unmistakable sound of military jets and looked to see two F-18’s in formation on approach to land. I was not aware that there was a military base nearby, but there was no doubt they were landing somewhere close. We ate a marginal meal at Cal’z Pizza (the pizza was pretty good, but the “boneless hot-wings” I think were just from a bag of frozen chicken nuggets that were microwaved and drenched in some not very tasty sauce). While eating we found that we were 2 1/2 miles away from Naval Air Station Oceana and that they have a viewing area across the street from the runways. I think they just paved a small parking lot so people wouldn’t just stop on the side of the road to watch but that works for me.
After eating (quickly as we were motivated by the sound of jets constantly passing overhead) we made our way to the viewing area. We saw a few sorties land as we were driving and got to watch a couple more singles come in and land once we got to the viewing area. I could have stayed there for hours, but we had more people to see so it was back on the road to Greenville.
We got in more visits to folks there, and had to stop by the famous Duck Donuts. It lived up to the hype that Austin had given it.
Rather than stay in Greenville, we made a reservation back in Smithfield to have a short drive to the airport for my wife to drop us off and also a shorter drive for her back to Raleigh to catch her flight. Once at the hotel I started looking at the forecasts for the first leg of our return flight in the morning. It was showing a good chance of thunderstorms along the southern route so I made plans to head to the northwest across the Applacians, into Kentucky for a fuel stop, and then eventually stay the night somewhere in Missouri. I went to bed feeling pretty good about the plan for the morning.
