Holiday Trav-L-Park | Virginia Beach

Part Two: Beach House on the Move
For those of you living on a planet other than mine - "Beach House on the Move"
is a play on Jimmy's Buffett's CD "Beach House on the Moon".

Tuesday - 15 October 2002: Virginia Beach, Virginia - I rescued Snickers from the kennel this morning. He'd had a bath and had a little black and orange ribbon tied to his collar for Halloween (or to celebrate the Beavers Big Loss this weekend).

Another Sniper victim last night. A 47-year-old woman at Home Depot with her husband. Every day errands turning deadly on The Beltway. Maybe this time The Sniper pissed-off the wrong people: she was a FBI employee. Lisa has strict instructions to remain close inside the heart of the beltway and to use the GW 4-RIDE on-call student shuttle to move about. It is a sad day when you have to decide which is safer for your only child - International Terrorist target areas or Sniper target areas. Don't think it didn't cross our minds to just bring her with us... not that she would have agreed.

We headed out of town - east to Annapolis, crossed over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge (toll $7.50) and headed south (through an area called Delmarva - Delaware, Maryland and Virginia) to Virginia - the long way. Pretty little towns all along the way. We saw many produce stands, peanut and cotton farms. We saw our first "Friendly's" restaurant - an ice cream favorite from our Exeter, New Hampshire days - and also a sub shop advertising "No one is losing weight on our subs" (a tribute to the Subway/Jared ad campaign), which we both found hilarious... but, we stopped at a park and shared a tuna sandwich.

Snickers slipped immediately back into his RV Dog mode. He went crazy when he saw His Master again this morning - ran around the outside of the motor home and howled a few times. But, when we left DC, he hopped-up on his "spot" and went to sleep! Ahh, the life of a Bedouin Beagle!

At 2 p.m., we crossed the "Mason-Dixon" line where signs read: "Welcome to Virginia" and "The South Starts Here", so it was lucky for me, I have started a new section of my journal. Then, we did a very scary thing - we crossed over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. 18 miles of hell. Toll $24. They should have paid me. The sea was wild and it was crashing over the bridge. Just to make things fun - let's put a TUNNEL under the ocean in the middle of the bridge! Huge tankers were crossing over our heads, over 100 feet above, while we were in a little gerbil tunnel under the sea. It scared me more than the Chunnel! I think it was scary because the tunnel started 12 miles-or-so along the bridge. The road simply dove down!

Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel - photo by Timothy Wood

We had our first sight of the Atlantic (on this trip) and plan to follow the shoreline all the way to Florida! We are at a very nice campground in Virginia Beach, directly under the flight plan of the Naval Air Station, so have our ears blown-out occasionally when an F-something soars over. Two years ago, it would have bothered me. Now, it is reassuring. Life is strange.

We have been to the near-by Williamsburg area before, but not Virginia Beach, so will explore here tomorrow.

RV Park: Holiday Trav-L-Park in Virginia Beach, Virginia