First Landing Campground

Weekly budget was $82.00 Money spent. $119. I am over budget by $49.00.

Nov. 7-14 budget $33.00

I got on the road pretty early today. Around 7. I had about 12 miles to ride until the Chesapeake Bay bridge tunnel. I had checked last night to see if there were Uber or any other type of shuttle service. I couldn’t find out anything definite so I planned on thumbing a ride. With out having a plan b I wasn’t sure how long it would take. There are a lot of bike shops in the Virginia Beach area. Im sure some of them offered a shuttle. None of them opened before 10am though. I arrived at the bridge around 8:30. It was still very windy but sunny and a lot warmer. 54 degrees. Sitting on a guard rail in the sunshine, thumb out on one hand a can of iced coffee in the other, it was impossible not to have a huge smile on my face. Life is good. Im not sure how long I sat there, but I got a ride pretty fast. It was a pick up truck but the bed was pretty full of stuff so I had to take my panniers off. But that’s not a problem. The drivers name was Joe. Thank you Joe! I had my camera out this time, crossing over up at Annapolis I hadn’t thought of it and wished I could of got a few pictures of the water. Today though my window was so dirty I couldn’t take a picture anyway. I did take one out the windshield of a ship that was full of cars. Joe told me it was full of cars or I wouldn’t of known

Yesterday when I was making something close to a plan I decided to stay at this state run campground. Since I didn’t know how long crossing the bridge would take I chose this place because it was so close to the bridge. It’s really nice. I was here by one o’clock though. It was such a nice day I kind of hated to stop riding so early. But it was really windy and I wasn’t sure how far until I was out of the busy urban area.

After setting up for the night, I took a walk to the beach. The waves were so big It looked more like the ocean then it did the Bay.

There was a Food Lion grocery store I had past about a mile before the campground. I had not had anything to eat and was starving. Peanut butter and tortillas or Ramen noodles were the only thing in my food bag. I needed a resupply so rode up to the store. Everything looked delicious. I should know by now not to shop hungry. Haha. My shopping cart had a mind of its own and instead of going to the pasta isle it pulled me straight to the meat case. I grabbed a steak, brocoli, baby red potatoes and a ½ pound of shrimp. With that in my cart and my belly rumbling , I headed straight back to camp to cook. I will resupply tomorrow!

On Sunday I had the road to myself until mid-morning The quietness was nice.

It was mostly fields of soybeans but every now and then there was cotton. I didn’t think cotton grew this far north. I saw the first field of it a long way off and didn’t know what it was. It looked like a light dusting of snow. It was cold but not that cold!

Once across the bridge into Virginia Beach traffic was pretty heavy. It took a while to get used to it after the peacefulness of the Shore. I rode on the sidewalk mostly,even though there were bike lanes. I was happy when I came across the Cape Henry trail. It ran the rest of the way to the campground.