Day 3, Sunday April 24 - Williamsburg, VA to Durham, NC

Starting mileage:  550 Starting time: 2:00 pm

Ending mileage: 744 Ending time: 5:30 pm

Travel mileage:  196 Travel time: 2:30 hours

Morning at the hotel was chaotic as there were 200 members of a school chorus staying there, all trying to have breakfast at the same time and then checking out.

We decided to visit "Historic Jamestown" which is a National Park Service facility on the original Jamestown Island.  There is also a nearby "Jamestown Settlement" which is a commercial recreation of life in the Jamestown of 1607.

The tour guide was very good, sharing considerable history that was new to us.  We hadn't realized that John Smith had produced detailed maps and written detailed books about the original settlement. Although a lot had been written, the actual location of the 1607 fort wasn't discovered until 1994 when an archaeologist had a new theory about the location. Hundreds of thousands of artifacts were found as well as a number of graves. The artifacts and updated historical information are in a new museum on the grounds.

We had a nice picnic lunch on the grounds before driving on a loop around the island which many informational signs. We were glad to be there before the mosquitos came out!

We had planned to take the Interstate to Richmond and then down to Durham but we saw the ferry crossing the James River near Jamestown and decided to take it across instead, making the trip much shorter in miles although not much shorter in time. It was considerably more interesting and we could see the many different species of seabirds along the ferry piers.

We stayed with our friends Bill and Debbie Brooks. I had worked with Bill for several years at IBM Kingston. We had been good friends and had kept in touch regularly.

Day 3 route

Ferry from Jamestown

Pocahantas at Jamestown

Day 2, Saturday April 23 - Ocean City, MD to Williamsburg, VA

Starting mileage:  355 Starting time: 8:30 am

Ending mileage: 550 Ending time: 3:30 pm

Travel mileage:  195 Travel time: 7:00 hours

It was nice to walk out of the room and go to the beach first thing in the morning and a comfortable 65 degrees. The waves were still crashing in but it wasn't as windy as the day before. Although the room was great, the hotel utility room was just under our room and made awful noise most of the night so I didn't get much sleep. When I complained at the front desk in the morning they gave back 50% of the room cost which lessened the pain.

Along the highway there were many trees that had what appeared to be Wisteria vines with large clusters of purple flowers - it reminded us of the Wisteria in Japan.

We went over the Chesapeake Bay bridge and tunnel back to the mainland. It is so long that we couldn't see the other end when we started on the bridge. Most of it is just supported on piers in the shallow water. In two spots there are tunnels where the ends are on artificial islands that had to be built up to have a place to descend. The tunnels had to be under water deep enough for large navy and commercial ships to pass over.

Carmen spent several years in Newport News when she was around 7 years old and she wanted to see what it was like, especially the Huntington Park. We were able to find the park and checked out the fishing pier where she and her brother used to go. We had a picnic lunch in the park overlooking the James River. We also visited the Virginia War Museum in the park. When Carmen was last there, the Vietnam, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq wars had not yet taken place. The museum was very up to date, covering history up through the 2014 announcement of troops leaving Afghanistan.

We are spending the night at a Comfort Inn in Williamsburg and had dinner at the Red Hot & Blues restaurant which was very good and good value.

Day 2 route

Carmen at the Virginia War Museum

Day 1, April 22, 2016 - Home to Ocean City, MD

Starting mileage:  0 Starting time: 9:00 am

Ending mileage: 355 Ending time: 5:00 pm

Travel mileage:  355 Travel time: 8:00 hours

Although there were a few sprinkles before we left, it was mostly dry with temperature around 80 much of the way down.

Driving through New Jersey, we noticed that the trees had leafed out considerably more than at home. Unfortunately, there were many signs of tent caterpillar infestation in the trees along the highway and almost all the leaves had been eaten off  It was difficult to tell what species of tree they preferred.

We decided to take the route along the Delaware shore barrier island from Rehoboth beach down to Ocean city. Along the way we stopped near two of the WW 2  concrete observation towers that were used to look for German ships that might attack the shipyards up the Delaware river. The towers were only expected to last 20 years but they are still solid 75 years later.

It is pleasant being here off-season as it is not nearly as congested as the summertime when the beaches and resorts are packed. We came here when Amy and Anna were small to see the ponies at Chincoteague and it was crazy busy. We splurged and got a hotel room right next to the beach - we can walk out of our room and over the dune to the water.

Day 1 route

 Beach outside hotel in Ocean City

WW2 Observation Tower