Saturday, May 7 – Thursday, May 12, 2022

Just as we were leaving North Carolina, the Weather Gods stopped smiliing on us.

When we got on our bikes Saturday morning, we didn’t know we’d be riding 88 miles, through Virginia Beach and almost to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel. All we knew was that we’d take one more ferry in North Carolina and then maybe stay at a campground before crossing into Virginia, for a total of about 55 miles. But when we stopped for a second breakfast and I checked my email, I had a response from a Warm Showers host. She was out of town but with the rain coming we could stay at her house in Virginia Beach anyway. Rain and an opportunity to do laundry cinched it.

We didn’t linger over our shared crab omelette – which was delicious – and kept up a solid riding pace, arriving for the one o’clock ferry with time to spare.

Once off the boat, we realized the weather had changed. The temperature was dropping, the wind picking up. 

But we felt strong and the countryside in this last part of North Carolina was really lovely. We’d been passing through agricultural land and just off the ferry we passed a lot of marsh.

Then in Virginia more farmland and horse country. We passed people picking strawberries and a farmstand and stopped to pick up an onion, tomato, zucchini, and a quart of strawberries. That turned out to be a wise decision.

Soon we came to the suburbs of Virginia Beach and crossed a bridge to a combination pedestrian walkway and bike path along the beach. Hotels towered above us on one side, tourists everywhere. It was cold and windy. I began to wonder if we’d come to regret sending our warm clothes home at the beginning of our trip.

Only a few people walked on the beach and no one was swimming. The promenade appeared new and full of fun outdoor sculptures and restaurants, but too crowded for my tastes. I felt bad for all the people who came for a weekend of beach fun and would wake up in the morning to a miserable day.

I was really happy to be working my way to a private home, hot shower, and simple home-cooked meal. I had hopes we’d be able to pick up a rotisserie chicken at the local grocery store, maybe some vanilla ice cream to go with the strawberries.

We rode about five miles along a frontage road then popped onto a highway with a wide bike lane. Thoughts of clean laundry and a hot shower powered my legs to ride strong and fast to our destination. We arrived just as the rain began after 12 hours on the road.

Neither of us had the energy to walk in the rain to the grocery store two blocks away. Noodles and vegies sufficed for dinner, fresh strawberries for dessert.

Rain in the forecast for the next day, 20 mph northeast winds at least through Wednesday, it was not looking good for two adventurous souls traveling by bicycle.

We woke up Sunday morning to wind and rain. Before even getting out of bed I looked for a place to stay on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay. We’d earned a day off. Fortunately for us the Baywood Bed and Breakfast, just a mile from the bridge/tunnel had a room available at a reasonable price. We took it.

Also fortunately for us, we only had to ride a couple miles to get to our noon appointment to be shuttled over and through the Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel. The service cost the same as a single fare – $14 – even though they needed to drive each of us separately. (The vans only have room for one passenger.)

The bridge/tunnel is an engineering wonder. You start out on a bridge then go down into a tunnel, then out onto a bridge, back into another tunnel, and finally finish on a bridge. The driver told me it was built in the 1960s, designed so military ships could always get through the bay. High winds will shut it down but they are able to stay on top of ice and snow pretty well. The weather was pretty nasty for our trip.

We arrived at the Baywood Bed and Breakfast shortly after noon. Mike, the innkeeper, let us check into our room right away. It was a beautiful place right on the water and we enjoyed a well-earned day off.

By Monday the rain had stopped but not the wind. We braced ourselves for a tough day.

We started riding around nine o’clock after a hearty B&B breakfast. When we stopped at a church for a picnic lunch the sun was out and I had hopes that the wind had died down. It hadn’t. We made it to the little town of Wachapreague around three o’clock, where we checked in to the Wachapreague Inn. We were proud of our 40 miles.

Wachapreague is a very small town on Bradford Bay. Besides the motel, the town hosts a restaurant, marina, a few official buildings and a shop or two. Apparently it is popular for flounder fishing. As we relaxed in our room a loud gathering of folks who came to fish sat outside drinking beer and visiting. The party lasted for hours, but fortuneately by 8:00 they decided it was too cold and went inside. In the morning they were up cooking breakfast, trying to decide if they would brave the wind and go out fishing in their boats. Probably not.

Tuesday morning the wind still howled.

We’d been looking forward to a return visit to Chincoteague since the start of our trip. When Rob and I were a young married couple living outside Washington, DC, we discovered Chincoteague, with its beach and wildlife refuge for wild ponies. And we discovered Miss Molly’s Bed & Breakfast, run by a lovely Bristish couple. The Victorian inn had a beautiful screened porch shaped like a gazebo. Miss Molly’s is still in business. We looked forward to cycling out to see the ponies and to sitting on the porch with a cup of tea. The wind turned all that into a question mark.

On Monday I booked us a room at Miss Molly’s. It turned out to be a foolhardy – and dangerous – adventure.

The wind was even worse than on Monday. We made 27 miles by 11:00, taking turns leading.

We stopped for lunch in the tiny town of Atlantic, with the only business a small sandwich shop. Rob noticed that they had milkshakes, sadly, for him, no strawberry – just chocolate and vanilla. But he adjusted. BLT and chocolate shake for me; tuna melt and vanilla shake for Rob. Our lunch gave us the strength to tackle the last 9 ½ miles.

The first four miles went about the same as the morning, but when we got to the causeway, we were in trouble. I don’t know what the wind speed was, but I’ve never ridden in anything like it before and hope to never again. We should have stopped and hitched a ride. There were several places where we could have. At one point I asked Rob if we should and he said no. I had to fight constantly to stay upright, leaning hard to the left into the crosswind that threatened to push me off the road. With less than two miles to go, and a long bridge ahead, a gust of wind almost blew me over. I’d had enough. I stopped, got off, waited for Rob, and said, “I’m walking the rest of the way.” He didn’t argue.

We agreed there was no way we’d be riding the causeway for the return journey, when the wind was supposed to continue. We’d hitch. We’d seen plenty of pickup trucks.

Later I asked Rob why he didn’t agree to hitch a ride when I mentioned it. He said, “I don’t know. I guess my manliness got the better of me.” We both deserve the stupid prize.

We checked into Miss Molly’s Bed and Breakfast around 1:30 and collapsed on the bed. After showers, we napped. The inn is as we remember it, with its beautiful gazebo porch out back and lovely Victorian furnishings throughout. But the cold wind kept us from enjoying the porch or visiting the wildlife refuge to see the wild ponies. We went for a walk through town on our way to dinner. 

What we’d immediately noticed when we came into town were the large hotel chains and condos built up along the water. None of that was there when we first discovered the island in the 1980s. We walked along the main street and saw cute shops along with empty storefronts and old houses across the street from new hotels and condos.

As Rob and I reminisced about earlier visits to Miss Molly’s we remembered how we somehow did it on a shoestring budget. I said, “I’m glad we made trips like this happen. We really have some wonderful memories.”

As Julie, the innkeeper, graciously served us an early breakfast, she asked how far we planned to ride that day. I said, “It depends on how long it takes us to catch a ride off the island.”

She said, “I’ll call my boyfriend. He’ll give you a ride. We have a bike rack you can use.”

Hal came. We couldn’t figure out the bike rack but with a bit of work we got both bikes in his car and Rob and I squeezed into the front passenger seat. On the way over the causeway, Hal told us that when he and Julie decided to move to Chincoteague from New Jersey, Julie said she wanted to be an innkeeper. She had no experience, coming from a corporate job working for Marriott Hotels. That was six years ago. Miss Molly’s changed owners but Julie stayed on. She has clearly found her true love.

The day started out great and ended great. The in-between sucked.

It was another character building day. At first I thought the wind wasn’t as bad as yesterday, but I was wrong. We were riding through farm country with fields bordered by large stands of trees. We were grateful for the trees; they protected us from the wind, somewhat. Every time we rode with fields on either side we were slammed. And it was cold. We wished we had the warm clothes we’d sent back to New Hampshire weeks ago when we were in the Florida summer weather.

We’d probably gone about 27 miles when it started raining. At first I didn’t think it would amount to much as the forecast I’d seen said .05″. That’s just a drizzle. Thankfully Rob had the good sense to suggest we stop and put on our rain gear before it started coming down hard.

After ten miles we came into Berlin, the first town we’d seen all day that had anything other than a church. We were aiming to stop for a snack before heading on to Ocean City. But Berlin is a real town with shops and a historic hotel right on Main Street and we were wet and cold and tired. It didn’t require any discussion. I went into the Atlantic Hotel and got us a room.

The next day we realized how grateful we were for the rain that forced an early stop for the day in Berlin.

We had a pleasant afternoon. Once we showered and warmed up we went out to explore the town. By then the rain had stopped. We found a book store and a diner where we had hot tea and ice cream (an ice cream soda for me).

Back at the hotel we relaxed, napped, and had dinner in the hotel restaurant. It wasn’t the crab dinner I was hoping to have in Maryland, but we’ve been told it’s too early in the season for that. I adjusted and ordered a crab cake sandwich.

This was our only night in Maryland.

If we dared to hope that the wind would die down by Thursday we were disappointed. I struggled to keep my good humor. It was cold. We put on three layers of shirts, our yellow windbreakers and our rain jackets with hoods up.

The day’s riding took us through the tourist towns along the Maryland and Delaware coastlines with their multitudes of high rise hotels and condominiums. When we arrived in Ocean City I was extremely grateful we’d stopped in Berlin so we hadn’t had to stay in one of the hotels along the beach. We rode along the boardwalk for a bit, past the bulldozers and graders working to get the beach ready for the summer tourists. The tacky shops and arcades along the boardwalk reminded me of Hampton Beach in New Hampshire. 

For many miles we had hotels and condos on our right and strip malls with T-shirt shops and beach supply shops and restaurants on our left. Then just residences, some pretty high end. In Delaware every community we passed was gated. If we wanted to stop anywhere we’d have to cross four lanes of traffic to explore one of the strip malls. We eventually stopped at a McDs.

We zipped through Delaware in a few hours. It was too cold to stop and take pictures.

The last 7 miles we rode on a bike trail through woods and residential communities that took us most of the way to the Lewes-Cape May ferry. That was pleasant riding. The ferry to New Jersey was a pleasant hour and a half that Rob and I  used to plan our strategy for the next couple days,

We were fortunate in having a Warm Showers place to stay in Cape May. Carol and Mark opened their home to us on short notice and prepared a dinner of shrimp, cod, rice, and salad. Their son, Christian, a professional chef, did much of the meal prep.

I’ve been impressed with the bicycling infrastructure in Maryland. We were riding a busy highway today but it felt safe because we were in a bike/bus lane. We had the same thing in Baltimore last fall.

For the first four weeks of this trip we were cycling through a state a week. Then Virginia in four days, Maryland in one, and Delaware in a few hours.