October 25, 2012 Northwest River Park, Virginia

Hurricane Sandy is heading toward the east coast, it may land anywhere between  North Carolina and  New York, either way the barrier islands are going to have really bad weather so we headed inland. We went across the Chesapeake Bay bridge/tunnel.  $28 for the bus to cross. It is not something you want to cross in bad weather, esp high wind and big waves.  It is 17 miles long, offers a spectacular panoramic view of Chesapeake Bay. It is an unusual combination of bridges, tunnels and four man-made islands. It was named ‘one of seven engineering wonders of the modern world.’

You start out on this nice big bridge pictured in the top of the first photo, then all the sudden the bridge just disappears and you head into this tunnel under the ocean. Not the best place for some one like me who is claustrophobic and afraid of being under water. There were two tunnels. The bus camped at Northwest River park. It is a city park for the town of Chesapeake.  A 750 acre park . We had the campground to ourselves. Which is nice, you can go to the shower in your bathrobe.

There are three Camilla trees behind the bus.  They are having the ghost train this week during the evenings here for Halloween. We rode down the bike trail where they are having it, lots of ghosts and goblins in the trees, they run the train at night and all of this is lit up. They have a story line and skits. They have been doing it for 30 years. People who came through here as kids are now bringing their kids the ranger told me. We can’t go see it, it is sold out.

Some to the ghost train sights, and John going to the cemetery.

I liked this guy, he can’t talk back to me. John had the audacity to lock me in this. . .

The trail went to the Northwest river. Here are bald cypress trees. It is very swamp like. It is very close to the Great Dismal swamp where  we are going to tomorrow. This was part of it, but they drained the land in between for farm land.  Don’t feed the ticks!

The trail on the way back had this great bridge with tiki heads on it. Here is John with one.

Here are the 5 tiki heads, oops, I mean all 4. A shot of the swamp.

reflections in the swamp.