Day 148 / False Cape
It was a long weekend. I took Friday off to drive down to Virginia Beach for the weekend. The three and half hours drive became close to six hours because of the traffic. The place was farther than I remembered. I was there six months ago for a marathon (First Landing Seashore 50 K). I was stuck in traffic in the DC area trying to get out of town. We moved about 18 miles and that took almost two hours. I was stuck in traffic when I arrived. It took an hour to just move three miles to cross the Hampton Rd Bridge Tunnel. Weird name. It is partly a bridge and a section of it is a tunnel. I sat there in traffic for an hour contemplation about the bridge and other cars around me. It seemed everyone is going to the beach.
I arrived at the first landing state park campground and settled in. Set up and everything was a breeze to me. I am used to ‘primitive’ camping so family/car camping is like living in a hotel for me.
I went there for a weekend event with a meetup group. I know the leader from previous trips I did. We walked along the Bay. I liked my campsite. Virginia Beach is in an urban area. We went out for dinner. I packed some Mountain House (dehydrated food) I ended up using those just for breakfast. For dinners and lunches we ate out.
The next day, we biked in First Landing State Park. I ran there before and was familiar with the trail. It was not a race. We stopped along the way to look at birds and flowers. It was my first time doing bird watching. We saw snowy egrets, indigo buntings, and grey heron. We wanted to find snakes too. We heard cottonmouth or water moccasins are native in the area, so we tried to spot them. They are venomous.
On the last day, we drove to Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge, located in southern end of Virginia Beach. We biked into False Cape State Park. Biking and hiking in is the only way to reach False Cape. You could also take a tour bus called a tram. It is the most prestine beach in Virginia. No one was there, at least we saw no one on the beach. It borders North Carolina. We actually crossed to the North Carolina jus to say we did it. There is a fence between the two states.
We hiked along the beach to get to where we left our bikes.
I am not a travel blogger and didn’t take any pictures. But here is the Garmin tracker that showed I’ve been near the NC border. I think they built a fence to keep NC beach goers out of the Virginia side and it works. You could see on the NC side, people drive their trucks in and there are condos and houses, but across to the VA side, there is nothing for miles. The beach on the VA side has nobody. The fence has a little gate for people to go across but no one crosses into the VA side.
In awe 