all in this post.
And (all new, all color) pictures!
When last I left you I was at the bottom of Maryland's Eastern Shore in Pocomoke City after which I continued down the DelMarVa into the Va, a long skinny water riddled spit of land buffered between the wide Chesapeake Bay and the (somewhat wider) Atlantic Ocean. To the left is an image of the peninsula the skinniest part of it is the Virginia part of the DelMarVa. To the left is the Chesapeake Bay and to the right is the Atlantic and further north the Delaware Bay and the peninsula of Southern Jersey
At Cape Charles, the tip of this land people once figured there ought to be a fixed crossing to the Virginia mainland to the conurbanation known as Hampton Roads (the cities of Norfolk, Newport News, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Suffolk etc... did you know that Virginia Beach is the most populous city in Virginia?). The problem with a fixed crossing woud be the rough seas at the mouth of the bay and the fact that the distance between the two lands is over 17 miles. No worries a bridge was planned with mostly causeway and a few high sections to allow large boats to pass up the bay to Baltimore and into the Hampton Roads area, a big Naval and shipping center.
The navy wasn't keen on the idea of span that, by accident or malicious intent, could fall thus blocking the entrance and exit to this strategic point. The solution was to make one high truss at the northern end of the crossing and two tunnels beneath the main shipping channels between other sections of causeway. The passage over this bridge is an exceptionally bizzare experience. It is odd enough to be on the center of a bridge from which, on a day with even slight haze, no firm land can be seen but then the bridge just sort of dives beneath the water and then, about a mile later, resurfaces. Madness. You can see the point at which the bridge becomes a tunnel to the left.
I crossed the bridge and found the first Office Max in Virginia Beach where it took FOR-EVER to unload and which the manager, a lady later blamed on the fact that the unloading was being done by a man. While I was waiting I saw a door lying next to a dumpster. A nice solid door. I figured, Hey, I'm building a bakery, It will probably need doors and leaving this door here on the pavement would be tantamount to leaving a hundred dollar bill (at least) on the pavement when clearly no one else wanted it. So I wrestled it into the truck where It still is and will be until I get home.
The unloading at the second OfficeMax in Chesapeake went much more smoothly and before long I was on my way.
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