Friday, May 29, 2020

Travel Vignette: Virginia

By Elizabeth Prata


In the 1990s I traveled a lot. On one trip, in 1994, my husband and I took a cross-country trip in our 1982 VW Westphalia pop-up camper van. I kept a travel journal along the way, observing quirky things, majestic sights, the food we ate, and soon. The usual travel journal stuff. Occasionally I extract a snippet from one of my travels and post it. This one is from the aforementioned cross-country trip.

Seen on Route 13 south of Exmore VA, 'Ophelia's Hats & Wigs.' We had a great meal at the Trawler Restaurant, crabcake sandwich, sweet potato biscuit, hush puppies, and a pickle. Yum!

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel was spectacular. Many small craft were out trying their luck. Imagine being on an open boat out on Chesapeake Bay in the middle of December! We stopped at the scenic lookout/rest area and walked to the edge of the pier. NOAA has a couple of tide gauges  to monitor water flow here at the southern end of the bay. The water was completely still, and the wind was calm. Looking north we could see Thimble Shoal Light, and east we could see the light at Cape Henry, with an anchored tanker just offshore. The bridge itself curved gracefully away from our eyes, toward an indistinct lazy shore.

Seen:

--Tarheel BBQ, with shot out holes in the sign,
--Cotton fields,
--A truck transporting two large sows,
--Gates Shopping Center, a dilapidated brick building in a sandlot with a sign that said "Yes, we're open" in the middle of nowhere.


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