snapshots abroad: June 2013

May 24th & 25th:

I had Friday off, so we decided to beat the crowds for what was sure to be a busy travel weekend after finally having our first week of truly summer weather. We hopped into the car with a cooler full of picnic food and our beach blankets and headed to Assateague Island National Seashore. It was a little breezy and cool when we arrived but there was a little sunshine. I didn't mind the incoming clouds since it meant less chance for the inevitable epic sunburns I get.

With summer beers open and snacks being eaten, I think I was down to my swim suit for about 15 minutes before a wall of weather rolled out to sea and the wind started pelting sand into every nook, cranny, and orafice. The few other beachgoers had already started to pack up and leave but there were a few kite fliers, so we hung around collecting shells and doing cartwheels in the surf.

Erm....well, we tried to do cartwheels...

Eventually the wind became too intense for kite flying too, and it wasn't long before we had most of the beach to ourselves. We gave up. Back in the shelter of our car we ate most of the picnic snacks and decided to stop at nearby Ocean City to for Fisher's Popcorn, all so we could buy this tin.

OC Boardwalk

Since we were planning on spending the next day in and around Newport News, VA we continued our drive down the eastern peninsula to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, which was closed due to an accident. Rather than drive six hours back around the bay, we went to a nearby state park on the eastern side of the bay for a little nature hiking.

When we returned to the bridge about an hour later it looked like the accident had been cleared, but then we were forced to stop about half-way across for about two hours. We still had some road snacks to munch on and the bay was beautiful, but most of our entertainment came from reading the impatient outbursts and blusterings of fellow travelers on the CBBT's twitter page.

By the time we were over the bridge and checked into a motel for the night it was 8 pm, so we went to bed without dinner. Except lots of popcorn and leftover sangria. Did I mention that a whole bottle of wine fits into a Nalgene bottle? Sweet.

The next day we drove out to the former site of Jamestown (ext. 1607). I didn't know what to expect, but now I understand why the town faced so many hardships: It was allowed to be built on the scrappiest, crappiest, swampiest bit of land the English could get, and only because the tens of thousands of Native Americans in the area didn't want to live there. The bogs bred disease-spreading mosquitoes and fresh water was hard to come by (even with out a drought, which was happening when the fort was built).

Part of the land has been claimed by the James River during centuries of erosion, but it is still a very active archeological site. Any structural foundations or graves that were uncovered over the last two decades (the remains of the original fort weren't discovered until 1994 since it was assumed it had all been washed away) have been reburied for preservation except for one area that is currently being documented. The on-site museum displayed the newest find, the skull of a teenage girl that has markings indicative of cannibalism that took place during the "Starving Time".

Gravesites interspersed with building sites, the ongoing excavation.

When we'd finished walking the grounds and exploring the museum, we drove the very scenic 23-mile Colonial Parkway that cuts under the major highways, along rolling hills and popular fishing spots to Yorktown. We didn't spend any time in the town itself, but we saw some cool items at the visitor's center (like George Washington's army camp tent!) and there were Civil War re-enactors giving exhibitions.

There was a short driving tour of the final battlefields in the American Revolution. We stopped at Moore House, where American and British officers negotiated the terms of Cornwallis' surrender to Washington. The Surrender Field looks like any other farmland, except that it has a giant stone and cement tower from which to see it, though it mostly serves as barn swallow nesting grounds.

At the end of the day we stopped at a trendy place near the highway called Food for Thought. I had some pretty darn good BBQ ribs and country cheese grits. Yum.

Finally, on Sunday we drove past all the Rolling Thunder tailgating that was happening at the Pentagon and drove through Georgetown to a little spot along the Potomac called Fletcher's Cove. The road is a very sudden one-lane split from the highway that takes you down a steep hill that curves around into what we thought at first was a drainage ditch. It turns out that the 8-foot high and over 200-year-old tunnel is a locally-known means to access picnic and fishing grounds, as well as a couple of recreational trails. We biked along the bumpy and gravelly B&O Canal Trail for about 7 miles before turning around once we reached the underside of the Capital Beltway (prior to this we accidentally went 4 miles on the Crescent City Trail). The weather was perfect with a cool breeze off the river. We saw many turtles.

June 1st:

Went to Baltimore. Had AWESOME food at Chaps Pit Beef. Saw the O's play in 95-degree heat. Wheew!