The Scary Bridge of Scary Death :- )

April 6th, 2023 – Day 50

Today was a travel day and we got to do a “No Highways” day. ) We both prefer them but we don’t like the extra time it takes, sometimes it is as much as 50% more, and that’s not acceptable. Sometimes, like in Louisiana, you can get off the highway and find a 55mph road that parallels the highway (that has an awesome lunchtime restaurant spot!), other times like West Texas you just wonder why the hell you’re on this terrifying road where people drive like idiots. But to get from Durham NC to Cape Charles VA it was about the same to take back roads as it was to to the highway. We chose back roads.

We’re back in gently rolling farmland now, this was a pretty common crop.

Some fields were still unplanted, others, the crop was much taller. We think it is just hay, but it was really green and quite lovely.

All of this area is quite lovely, we’ve been in Spring for some time now but here, in North Carolina, Spring has really come into its own. Almost all the trees and leafed out, very few are just in buds. And it is hot! We hit 90 degrees at one time, and last night we almost wanted the AC on, but we were boondocking so we couldn’t do that, didn’t have the power.

I can see the attraction to moving here, it is quite nice. But, I grew up outside of Philadelphia and I know what is coming, intense heat and humidity. I guess all areas have those few months were the weather is pretty bad, at least in New England it is too cold and you can put warm clothes on, down here? Man, I guess you would just stay inside!

Today we got to cross over to the DelMarVa peninsula using the super scary, 17.6 mile, Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. Aka, The Bridge of Death.

I really didn’t want to drive over/thru that but driving around Washington DC on the trip out was stressful and took far too long. We had asked about towing on this bridge in a Facebook group for our trailer. People all said it was easy. We had thunderstorms predicted for 6pm. We made sure we were well across it before then.

We were stopped at the toll booth, the gate didn’t go up automatically, and the attendant put out their hand. I was thinking, uh oh, is the EZ Pass not working? They just asked us if we had propane on board. We did, but had anticipated this requirement and had turned it off. Actually, we always travel with it off, which is annoying since our fridge runs on propane when not on shore power. (It can run off of 12v but it eat batteries like they are free, we have a 206aH Lithium Ion Phosphate battery, a really nice battery but the fridge will still drain it like a casino gets your money.)

Curiously, I had expected 5 questions (Susan here, three!) and was pleased to find only one, so we were didn’t get cast into the Gorge of Eternal Peril, aka Chesapeake Bay, just drove over it and under it. And if you need to watch that video to get those jokes. Don’t worry, we’ll wait…

It was actually quite pleasant to drive across the bridge parts. It reminded me both of the Lake Pontchartrain crossing and of the roads/bridges into Key West Florida.

Speed limit was 55 and I just kept it at that. The first tunnel had a speed limit of 45 and since we now had opposing traffic I didn’t mind dropping it down.

Frankly, it was terrifying. Normally, it tight situations I just keep an eye on my driver’s side mirror which is pointing at the trailer’s tire. I keep it just inside the yellow line and then I know the other tire will be inside the white line. But I couldn’t do that here. I just held it steady and soldiered on. The buffeting was constant, but fortunately, very small. It was just really nerve wracking.

The next few tunnels did not have a 45mph limit but I dropped it down there anyhow.

I was quite happy to see the exit.

And doubly happy to see land!

We easily found our campground, Kiptopeke State Park in Cape Charles VA, right at the south tip of the DelMarVa peninsula and I was disappointed to see row after row of trailers and no trees. But, I knew that finding sites around Easter was hard. So then we found our site.

It is perhaps one of the nicest sites in the entire campground, Susan really chose well (susan here: it was pure luck, don’t tell him that!) It is on a round dead end—all the campers are at angles to each other & the site gets wider as you go back, just like a piece of pie.

Oh, Susan caught dinner even though it is my month to cook.