Chesapeake Bay (April 2011)

Written by ceddammit

Hey! It’s Thursday! Time for another ThrowBack. We begin our voyage with Cedric’s employment status. At the beginning of April 2011, I was starting a new job with a government contractor. I would be working at the Denver Federal Center, but I had to spend the first two weeks in training in northern Virginia (just outside Washington, DC). Rather than fly home for the intervening weekend, I opted to stay in Virginia for two reasons. The first reason was Busch Gardens Williamsburg. At the time, this park had four “grown-up” coasters and a “Sesame Street” themed coaster. Since then, they’ve added four more full-size coasters and an additional family-friendly one. Like the other Busch Gardens park (in Tampa, Florida), this place is part amusement park and part zoo. I remember seeing about half a dozen bald eagles, a sleeping fox (“Sleeping Fox” is not the name of the species, I’m just telling you the fox was asleep) and an aardvark. I think. It seems to me this park was rather hilly, with some pretty steep ups and downs, so it was a bit on the exhausting side, but enjoyable.

The other reason I wanted to stay in VA over the weekend was to see and drive the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (CBBT), something I had wanted to do ever since I saw a TV show about its construction (the show was probably Modern Marvels). For the uninitiated, the CBBT enables motorists to drive their cars across the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. This is a 17.6-mile journey across 15.6 miles of bridges and two tunnels that are each one mile long. To facilitate the transitions from bridge to tunnel and vice versa, four man-made islands were constructed. Check this thing out:

More statistics and a map
Yup. It was big.
View from the southernmost “island” looking back toward the mainland.
Southern portal of the southern tunnel.
This was taken from the same spot as the previous pic; I just did a 180.
Rocks in the foreground are the northern end of the southernmost “island”. Rectangular building marks the far portal of the southern tunnel.
Massive container ship about to pass over the highway.
There were loads of tankers anchored off-shore. Someone explained why, but I don’t remember the reason.
Seems odd to think there are cars zipping along underneath this expanse of water.
Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (Photographed April 9, 2011)

Upon reaching the north end of the bridge-tunnel complex, you immediately enter the Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge. This refuge was originally purchased by the Federal government to provide a coastal defense for Washington, DC during World War II. The day of my visit was a chilly, wet, blustery day, so I didn’t stick around long enough to get many pics. Here’s what I did get, though:

Some background information
More background information (click to expand and enlarge)
No doubt this portal once had huge metal doors.
If you’re going to have guns that can launch a projectile 25 miles…
…make sure you put them where you can actually see for 25 miles.
Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge (Photographed April 9, 2011)

I continued north for a few more miles until I found a place to get some lunch (at least, I think I did). Then I headed back south to make the return trip across the CBBT. But at some point before reaching the bridge, I stopped to check out a beach on the Chesapeake Bay side of the road. I don’t remember the name of the place, and looking at it now on Google Maps, there are a few spots it could’ve been. So, I’ll just call it the beach on the west side of the peninsula. As you look at these photos, remember one word: Blustery…

View of the northern end of the CBBT
I walk along the avenue
I never thought I’d meet a gull like you
With auburn feathers and tawny eyes
The kind of eyes that hypnotise me through
And I ran, I ran so far away.
And yet still…I wish they all could be California gulls (Photographed April 9, 2011)

Driving back to my hotel at Williamsburg, I heard the GPS say something I never expected to hear from a GPS. I actually said to myself, “What the Hell did that thing just say?” So, I looked at the display and was shocked to see it spelled out. I didn’t know this was even a real word, much less did I ever think someone would give a road such a name. I thought it was something made up by the creators of the TV Show South Park. But when I arrived at the intersection, there it was…spelled out as plain as day…

I have since learned that Rochambeau is actually another name for Rock-Paper-Scissors. So, there’s the fun taken outta that.

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