This is what I wrote about the trip
The Cape Henry Inn at Ft. Story is open to anyone who has a military ID (active duty, retiree, DOD) and they take reservations up to a year in advance. The rates are on a sliding scale depending on the time of year. This time of year it is $29/night. In March when we come back I think it will be $35, and it goes way up in the summer. From our room we could see the Bridge Tunnel and ships anchored waiting for tugs or pilots
27 November 2004- Saturday
We got up early in the a.m. (the full moon was just setting) and got dressed and went up to the meeting room where they said there would be a free continental breakfast. This was coffee, orange juice or apple juice, donuts, bread (and toaster), and various kinds of cold cereal and various kinds of milk. No tea or tea bags although one of the guys used the coffee maker to make hot water. So we each had a donut and some juice. It was free so I can't complain.
We have about 140 miles to go today from here to Duck, and we aren't supposed to check in before 4 pm, so I've figured out a time wasting route which wasted a bit more time than I intended through getting lost a couple of times
We checked out about 8:15, and our first destination was the lighthouses at Cape Henry on Ft. Story. There is an old brick lighthouse which is open to be climbed from 10-4 in the winter, and the new black and white checkered lighthouse which isn't open. The lighthouses are pretty easy to find. (Lighthouses tend to stand out.)
There were a lot of informational signs, but those proved to be about Ft. Story itself and not the lighthouses. Ft. Story has some units stationed there from the army, navy, and marines for something they call JLOTS (Joint Logistics Over The Shore). Bob stayed in the car while I photographed the lighthouses.
He did get out to look at the two monuments one a cross put up by the Daughters of the American Colonists commemorating the first landings of the English colonists in VA in 1609 (put up in 1935),
The inscription on the bottom on the cross says:
"Here at Capt Henry first landed in America upon 26 April 1607 those English colonists who upon 13 May 1607 established at Jamestown, Virginia the first permanent English settlement in America"
Erected by
National Society Daughters
of the Amerian Colonists
April 26,1935
and
ne put up in 1976 in honor of the French Admiral deGrasse. That monument says:
"Francois Joseph Paul de Grasse
"This statue, a gift from France, is placed here overlooking the waters where Admiral Comte de Grass successfully engaged the British Fleet on September 5, 1781. The "Battle off the Capes" prevented cruicial reinforcements from reaching Cornwallis, thus hastening his surrender.
"Dedicated in grateful rememberance of the decisive contribution of Admiral de Grass to the winning of American independence
"October 17, 1976."
There were explanations of the battle that we had seen the movie about at Yorktown the preceding day. Bob also walked up to the top of the dune line where there was another display about the naval battle.
On the way back (March 14th 2005), we stopped at Fort Story again and I went to the Cape Henry lighthouse visitor's center and got a stamp for the passport. The National Park is really not at the lighthouses which are run by the AFVA, but they have the stamp as a courtesy.