Daily Narrative    The day began at the ambitiously named Roaring Point Campground, where the Chesapeake Bay was dead calm.  We had found Roaring Point through a series of "gray roads" the night before and we mapped out a course of gray to get us back to the primary road down the peninsula.  It was a very rural scenic drive and we quickly stumbled into a fun little two car ferry in Whitehaven.  We eventually made it back to the main road south and drove into Virginia.  An hour or so later we came to the engineering marvel that is the Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel.  This avenue across the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay is twenty-one miles of raised causeway (which is just a long flat section of bridge) and underwater tunnels.  Our initial concern was how a bridge gets itself into an underwater tunnel.  It turns out that it does this in the middle of manmade islands, we hadn't thought of that.  We made an aborted stab at visiting the recreated colonial town of Williamsburg, but were turned back by nasty road construction and we beat a hasty retreat south into North Carolina.  We headed for North Carolina's Outer Banks, a thin strip of barrier islands just off of the mainland.  We were surprised to find the first completely touristy town on the islands was Kitty Hawk, where the Wright Brothers had traveled to experiment with flight.  Amidst the strip malls, we found the Wright Brother's Memorial Center.  We read the displays, listened to a ranger do an interpretive talk, and hiked to the top of the sand dune (now planted in grass to preserve it) where they made thousands of attempted flights before they got it right.  From there we drove an often beautiful road down through the Cape Hatteras National Seashore to Buxton, and called it a day.

---

Daily Pictures

Morning in the Roaring Point Waterfront campground, on the Delmarva Peninsula	Almost immediately, we accidentally stumble into our smallest ferry yet in Whitehaven
That is a state tourism photographer standing on the other side, we just blew his shot	On our map, this is a gray road.  We like 'em
In this part of the country apparently if you leave something sitting around very long, Kudzu will grow on it, in it and under it.  This diner had it hanging from the ceilings	Welcome to Virginia, where another sign proclaimed that "this is where the south begins".  Our map doesn't have the Mason-Dixon line, so we couldn't confirm this
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel.  At twenty-one miles our longest bridge/tunnel on the trip, and at $10 our highest toll	Much of it was raised causeway like this...
...but every so often in the middle of a manmade island it would dive under water	Resurfacing near Norfolk
Theresa spotted this flamingo motif on an apartment building in Hampton.  Brian hopes to have a home in the same motif some day	In the middle of the Dismal Swamp (which was really not so bad), Virginia becomes North Carolina
We headed directly for the barrier islands, known to most as the Outer Banks, to Kitty Hawk and the Wright Brothers visitor center	Where we watched a fascinating presentation on the working model of the first plane (in the picture on the left) and one of the actual gliders (above)
The shed and workshop where the brothers built their experimental gliders and planes	Atop the hill they flew from sits a really big memorial
Further on down the Outer Banks, towards Cape Hatteras, the bridge over Oregon Inlet	What appears to be a former resort, disappearing into the dunes
A little Outer Banks marsh land	A little Outer Banks roadway

Earlier, at the Wright Brothers Memorial, Brian conducted his own flight experiments.  Here he is achieving take off speed...	Taking off...

 

Landing in nearly the same spot a full 60 seconds later, beating Wilbur Wright's original flight duration record by a full 3 seconds.  Theresa was very proud.

---

Back To Road Trip Main Page