On to Norfolk

March 7th.

Our last day in Richmond was spent with a quiet morning.  I might be fighting a bug ( thanks Bobby!) and had a very rare, but necessary, morning nap. We had another nice continental breakfast in the “Rally Room” of the office building.  Very timely and will bring us back to the Americamps RV park as a good staging ground before driving into the Deep South.  Was particularly important as we still have no groceries and had no water this morning due to the cold and bad planning on my part — I should have filled a kettle.

The ultimate plan for the day and the big reason for us to stick around was to drive down the peninsula to Hampton Roads and across to Norfolk to have dinner with Lorraine’s god-daughter Leah and her husband Stephen.  They are stationed at Norfolk where he is a medical admistration officer on the “Ike” as they call it and Leah does emergency planning on another aircraft carrier in dry-dock in Portsmouth.

The administrator from the park told us we need to leave early and leave lots of time. Leah said we should meet at 4:30 and leave lots of time as traffic can be miserable.  Having made the drive, which mercifully wasn’t too bad I can see the potential. There are way too many cities and military bases and national parks and tourist attractions at the end of this peninsula.  Almost every attraction in the state seems jammed into the end of this crazy strip of land between the estuaries of the York and the James. Colonial Williamsburg, Yorktown, Civil war battlefields, Fort Eustis, Norfolk, Portsmouth Naval yards, Langley, Langley NASA, and Bush Gardens to name just a few.

We left about Noon and puttered for a while along highway 60 stopping at a couple of antique stores. The peninsula gets more and more crowded the further east you go.  At “Lucky Junque” I bought a couple of Bruce Catton first editions and Lorraine bought some more cool enamelware. The nice young woman who runs this very quaint and extremely well arranged store also told us to be careful to leave lots of time get through Hampton and Newport News.  The other place was very expensive and it was clear as we got closer to Williamsburg we’d be paying tourist prices the rest of the way into Norfolk so we jumped on the interstate and it was a good thing. We made it across the tunnel/bridge to Norfolk and to Leah and Stephen’s just in time for dinner.  On the way we saw the Eisenhower or “Ike” as Leah and Steven call it and a sister ship in port in Norfolk and as backdrop to a beautiful view across the bay.



Dinner was at a lovely seafood restaurant just on the edge of Virginia Beach near Cape Henry with a nice view of the Ocean. And again we were treated — very spoiled by the Southern hospitality here.  Like Mike and Peggy last night they had it planned and stole the bill before we had a chance.  For us it was really nice to get to spend some time with young folks other than our children.  I hadn’t realized just how little time we spend with people under 40 who aren’t our children.  They are both keen and enthusiastic and planning their next deployments — life lays out ahead of them like a new day.  Gives me pause on the 365th day of my “retirement” that I still have plenty of time for new careers and new projects.

Tomorrow is a travel day — we’ll drive south at least to Charleston possibly Savannah.  We still have a full week to spend before we need to be in Naples and we would both love to spend a day in each city.

Comments

  1. BillMarch 8, 2019 at 12:33 AM

    life lays out ahead of them like a new day. you're killing me. Love you both so much.

    ReplyDelete

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