Good morning! Well, we were up early to pack and then get going on the road back to Virginia and to visit the city of Norfolk, which is pretty central for doing lots of side trips to places like Virginia Beach, Great Dismal Swamp, Williamsburg and some historic displays around the Chesapeake Bay. This area is also home to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge which is a phenomenon itself, however as it is a toll bridge and we really do not need to cross it, we will just take a look at it from somewhere! I will explain about this later.
I had 2 goals for today before getting to Norfolk – one I mentioned, which was to visit the Great Dismal swamp as I also found it eerily fascinating when we visited it when I was a child and also I needed to find some shells from the beach. I always pick up shells from the beach wherever I go and there will be no exceptions this time with this vast expanse of beaches!
First though, our hotel – I thought I would take a couple of pictures to show you how nice it is on the outside/common areas (except the laundry where there was a leak). I do not have pics of the hotel room though as I forgot to take them!









Next it was Mission Seashell for Lynda. As we drove north, which was awesome as we were next to the dunes, I could watch for entrances that had mats or might be easy to get through instead of the standard stairs up and over the dune. Alas, I saw two of these types of entrances and Andrew very kindly pulled over for me and we got out and went to the beach – again the mat was short so I was on a leash with the very soft sand that is impossible to use a walker once the mat ended. Also, you will note that there are now TWO red flags flying instead of the 1 from previous days. The one red flag is a warning of a rip tide being present. The 2nd red flag is a further warning that no swimming is to take place. These beaches are now not guarded as it is after Labour Day. Oh and it is spitting a bit – such fun!















Now we departed the Outer Banks on our way to the Great Dismal Swamp which is half way between where we are and Norfolk. We arrived at the Great Dismal Swamp Visitors centre in great time and I enquired about how to take boat rides on the swamp like I remember – they are not offered anymore! Oh no! Apparently COVID did them in. So we walked next door where the Park Office is located with a museum and a boardwalk loop of the swamplands and did that instead! Then we came back to the car and ate lunch prior to finding our way to where we are staying tonight – the Sheraton in Norfolk.






























On the road again! Now it is supposed to be a short drive (45 minutes) into Norfolk. As I have previously mentioned we are trying to avoid tolls as Avis charges $7.00 on top of EACH toll it has to pay. Google Maps has the ability to “Avoid toll roads”. It has worked really well until today. We were going along a busy street, being kept off the highway I thought due to it being a toll road and then all of a sudden I saw the sign saying “Last Exit before Bridge Toll” so I had Andrew exit quickly! I looked at Google Maps and across the water was our hotel – we could see it from the road. There was a different bridge we could cross however that was a 20 minute re-route – so off we went – re-routed away! It was actually fairly easy to do however I was really surprised that Google Maps did not give us a better warning than that!
We got checked into the hotel and put in an accessible room that was SMALLER than the original one on the Outer Banks. Holy smokes! I knew this hotel was older however this was ridiculous! I left tired Andrew in the room and went back down to the front desk and then they acknowledged that the desk clerk checking me in had made a mistake and that they have a “better” room for me, however it is on the ground floor – is that okay? Fine by me – I just wanted to lie down! Sure enough, at the VERY END of a long hall on the ground floor is our room – a very nice suite with a roll in shower and a separate bedroom space! Very cool – I am happy now! We went upstairs for some appitizers in the lounge and came back downstairs to our room and Andrew asked me when the Harvest Moon was going to be – which I thought it was going to be tomorrow night. Nevertheless, I took pictures of the moon tonight just in case clouds covered it tomorrow night! This Samsung 23 phone does a pretty good job of taking pictures I think!


