October 27-28, 2012 Jordan Lake, North Carolina

As the hurricane comes north, and we are inland we get clouds.  Much better than storms. We took the boats out on the lake.  Supposed to maybe rain tomorrow, with wind.

John leaving camp. Fall colors on the trees.

John in the weeds. Fall leaves in the water

The rooty trees have already lost their leaves, but the maples are still cranking. Sue in her boat

You can barely see the bus on the right, we are camped very close to the water. Sue again

HR and Betsy Malpass. Betsy’s mother and my mother are cousins. We came this direction to visit with them. We had a quick dinner this evening. So quick that the waiter in the background is blurred! The campground gate is locked at 8pm and we had to be back before that. Betsy and HR came to our place for dinner Sun pm. We spent the early part of Sun cleaning and cooking for our guests.

October 26, 2012 Great Dismal Swamp and Lake Jordan, NC

We went to the Great Dismal Swamp visitors center today. I had wanted to bike some of the 21 miles of trail they have, but hurricane Sandy is heading this way and we did not want to get caught in it.  We are on our way to visit my cousin Betsy( Lucille’s daughter for those of you familiar with my family) in Chapel Hill which is predicted to only be on the very fringe of the storm. We were going to  just drive half way, but when we got there John decided to just keep going. A long, long day of driving. We are now camped at Jordan Lake, North Carolina for the weekend.

Welcome to the dismal swamp. This is the George Washington canal. It is part of the intercoastal waterway. It used to used to ship cargo and to access the swamp so they could log it. Now it is mostly used for pleasure boats. It runs along the east side of the swamp. Most of the swamp east of here has been drained for farmland. The two boats in the distance are high tailing it from the storm. They were going to just tie up here, but they were told the barge that comes thru and takes out the downed trees won’t be thru for another 2 weeks, so they will be stuck. We are standing on a bridge that goes to the state park, it can be swung out of the way for boats to go by.

board walk in the swamp.  A beauty bush, love those purple berries.

John posted this photo of the rain fall projections from Sandy. The middle is expecting 12 inches of rain at this time, hurricane winds etc. It will change before the storm actually hits, but he has our locations the last couple days- today is the 26th. We are on the fringe of the storm here. A cotton field seen out the window driving thru northern North Carolina. Lots of cotton and soy beans here.

Our campsite at Jordan Lake. Sunset on the lake.

A kayaker on the lake at sunset. I am going to try to get out tomorrow on the lake, before the rain starts. The last photo is three kayakers on the lake at sunset.

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.

October 24, 2012 Kiptopeke State Park, Cape Charles, VA

We went to the tip of the Demarva(Delaware, Maryland and Virginia) peninsula to Cape Charles. We are camped at the Kiptopeke State park on the Chesapeake bay side. Beautiful beach. We also picked up our mail, including our absentee ballots and voted.

These chairs are part of the Virginia is for lovers ad campaign. We found the love and we are to share it, take photos, post them on their Facebook page and tell them how love was the heart of our Virginia vacation. John and Sue and a whole lotta Johns.

I rode this lawn chair in the sun all afternoon. 75 degrees, lovely. This ghost crab’s hole was at the foot of my chair. He is about 4 inches from foot to foot. He played peek a boo with my, in and out of his hole, keeping an eye on me.

The beach at sunset- nothing like having the beach to myself. Sunset clouds

The breakwater is a bunch of liberty ships used for hauling cargo in WWII. They are chained together and sunk. Look cool. A couple of kayak sea fisherman.

The ships at sunset.  We are heading inland tomorrow, a hurricane is heading this way. Even if it does not hit, it will be a big storm. I hope the North Carolina barrier islands don’t get sucked up in a hurricane before we get to see them.

October 23 2012 Chincoteague Island, Virginia

We drove down to Chincoteague Island because we wanted to see the NASA Wallops Flight Facility visitors center. They shoot rockets up here, and rumor has it they are going to send some supplies to the space station from here soon.

the NASA visitors center, it is closed Tues and Weds, today is Tues. Boo. We went to the Chincoteague National Wildlife refuse. Here is the light house. It is 140 feet tall, 196 stairs to the top. Of course we went up.

View of the bay side of the island from the lighthouse.  There are serpentine waterways here, the islanders call them ‘guts’. Lots of oysters, clams and crabs here. John on viewing the ocean from the light house. The south end of Assateague Island, the one we were on the north end of earlier this week , it shields Chincoteague from the sea and has the national seashore on it, is in the distance. It is mostly a thick forest of trees down the center.

The lights in the lighthouse from the bottom. Not the usual set up that you see in light houses. Chincoteague is famous for it’s wild ponies. Above are the children's books written by Marguerite Henry wrote about them. Everyone but me must have read them as a child.

Here are they types of ponies found on the islands of Chincoteague and Assateague. Rumor has it they are related to the horses that survived the sinking of a Spanish galleon that swam to shore. A sign on Assateague seashore ’Public Nudity prohibited’. Didn’t seem to be a problem when we were there.

Shells on Assateague sea shore. This end of the island is only accessible by foot, so it it 37 miles of beach with no development. John at the low point of Virginia-the Atlantic ocean.

A crab getting ready to dive down his hole on the beach. The sign says Hunt in Progress, Area closed. They are hunting Sika deer, small Japanese deer, really more related to elk than deer that are an invasive species and are competing for habitat with the white tailed deer.  They are trying to get rid of them. We saw some on the north part of the island, we heard them bugling like elk.

When we first saw these holes with the foot prints in the sand we thought it was lots of mice prints, but it is big crabs. One of the fresh water marshes on the island, migratory birds stop here on their way south.

Another fresh water marsh. The bus at Pine Grove campground on Chincoteague. We are the only campers here tonight.

A trio of black swans trumpeting for food and a trio of llamas at the campground, they had a menagerie of animals, also miniature donkeys, and emus.