Back to Virginia

I know it kind of seems like backwards progress, but we made it back into Virginia tonight. We drove from West Chester, Pennsylvania through Delaware and Maryland and then over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

A little history on us: We've taken several road trips before throughout the US and we've always made a point to get our picture in front of the state signs. We've discovered over time that stopping in the middle of the interstate to snap a picture with a tripod is kind of frowned upon. Strange, I know. So, instead we find a red road that will take us over the state line a little bit more out of the way and then we eventually connect back up with the highway. We spent a good half hour trying to find a darn Delaware sign between the Delaware and Maryland border. There were lots of them for Maryland...not so much for Delaware. And in the end...we were unsuccessful. How frustrating. The funny thing is though that the road there that goes east to west runs basically right along the state line. So on one side of the road the parked cars had Maryland license plates while the other side had Delaware. Kind of odd.

We finally pulled into a driveway to turn around and get back to the main highway. The person living there had a couple of dogs that immediately came right out to the car. We were starting to feel like this was a little awkward. And then another dog appeared...and then another! Phill was trying to navigate among four dogs that are each in different areas near the truck and meanwhile, Bailey is barking hysterically in the backseat and these people are out in their driveway wondering what the heck we are doing. Nightmare! It's pretty rural though...so it may have been the most excitement those people had seen in a while.

We got to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge around 6:30 or so. The wind was howling! I had never been on the bridge before. It's a pretty impressive project. The bridge itself is 17.6 miles shore to shore and has over 5,000 support piles/trestles. The northern section opened in 1964 after 42 months of construction and $200 million. The southern section opened in 1999 after 46 months of construction and $250 million. Each tunnel is a mile in length and goes anywhere from 25 to 100 feet below the water. We waited for a little bit in order to watch a huge cargo ship go over top. Pretty strange to think that there's a tunnel way down there!

We made it into Newport News, Virginia tonight and will be staying the night with Garrett Meyer. Tomorrow we plan to stay with the Svencers and then Friday we'll be hanging out with the Engineering Officer from Phill's cutter in Port Angeles. And then finally, we'll leave Virginia one last time and head west!