I know that you're all weary of my travels by now, but this lighthousing journey should be the last for this year (unless we hit the lottery). This one is an Outer Banks trip from Cape Henry, VA, to Bald Head and Oak Island, NC, and it includes the family this time. The lighthouses will come slowly at first, as we unwind a bit from the very hectic first half of the year we have all had. I'll spare you all the gory trip details until the serious lighthousing commences on Day 6. We originally planned to work our way all the way down to Tybee Island in Georgia before heading home, but the family mutinied for some down time at the beach. I suspect that South Carolina and Georgia will still be there next year.
Day 1.Drive from Jackson, TN to Williamsburg, VA.
Day 2.Jamestown Settlement, Williamsburg Historic District.
The Old Capitol Building,
Williamsburg, VA
Day 3.HL shopping. Short drive to Newport News. Visited the Mariner's Museum there. The whole family enjoyed this very much. Quite a bit of lighthouse history is covered there. There is the original 1st order Fresnel lens from the Cape Charles, VA, lighthouse on functioning display here,
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along with a lighthouse first order
whale oil lamp, an Argand lamp, a ventilator ball, a
screw from a screw pile, and many other lighthouse items. Also houses a collection of incredibly detailed model ships, the propeller and other artifacts from the
SS Monitor, a collection of small craft from around the world, displays on the great explorers and their vessels, cutaway working models of marine engines, an active boat building operation (we saw a
Chesapeake "deadrise" boat under construction), and much, much more. A real bargain at $13.00 for a family of 4. Allow at least two and one half hours. They have a nice gift shop that carries HLs. They had several retired pieces, but they were on open shelves and most had small chips.
Drove to Portsmouth, VA. Visited the Lightship Portsmouth.
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I was surprised to see it buried up to the waterline in concrete. It was explained that it is much cheaper to maintain and insure the ship this way. The docents there were very knowledgeable about the ship and about lighthouses in general. They provided us with a set of directions for a two-hour tour of area lighthouses, a LS Portsmouth history sheet and other stuff. We were the only visitors there and had time to have a nice conversation with them, comparing notes on lighthousing expeditions. Another bargain at $1 per person.
We headed back through the tunnel beneath the St. Elizabeth River to Norfolk to Waterside. We grabbed a bite to eat at the food court there before boarding the
American Rover, a three-masted topsail
schooner. We took
a three-hour tour,
a three-hour tourof Norfolk Harbor where we saw a lot of the Navy's best hardware and other sites. Saw Middle Ground Lighthouse in the distance, against the backdrop of another glorious sunset. (The lighthouse can be seen in silhouette in the distance at the far left of this photo.)
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This was a bit more expensive ($17 adult, $9 kids for the 3-hour sunset cruise we took, a little less for the earlier 2-hour tours) than the other activities of the day, but very enjoyable also. The kids got to hoist sails and pilot the boat, and there was live entertainment aboard that was quite good. The strolling guitarist/singer did mostly songs with nautical themes, from
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald to
Stairway to Gilligan's Island.
We drove to VA Beach to spend the next few days. The phone connections in the hotel are really lousy. I cannot connect to the internet at all because of the noisy connection. Looks like no internet for a few days at least, but there's no way I'm going to give up my oceanfront room. I love spending these late evenings with the balcony door open, letting in the cool breezes and listening to the surf crashing on the beach below.
Day 4.Beach and breakfast, then swimming pool. Later, took I-264 through Portsmouth to I-664 and across the Merrimack & Monitor Memorial Bridge back into Hampton. On the bridge (at around lightpost number 90) we pulled over for a quick photo of Middle Ground Lighthouse.
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Circled back on I-64E toward Norfolk. Planned to stop at Fort Monroe to see Thimble Shoal and Point Comfort lighthouses, but decided to go instead to Nauticus Marine Museum and the Tugboat Museum in Norfolk on Waterside Drive. Drove back to VA Beach for seafood and beach combing. Whatever the problem was yesterday with the phones is now fixed. Back on-line. Just in the nick of time, too. The DTs were beginning.
From directly beneath the F-14 flight path to the Oceana NAS, where I watched several dozen sorties returning home this evening,
-Art[Is there a war or something going on somewhere that I should know about?]
To correct some details and add some reflections, this message has been edited by Art (edited 06-01-99).
To add photos and links,
[This message has been edited by Art (edited 06-19-99).]
