The Way to Cape May

Cape May, you say? How did that happen?

Ellen was talking to our friend Sally yesterday. Sally mentioned that the South Shore Bird Club, of which Ellen and Sally are members (and by family extension it includes me), were having their spring birding trip to Cape May on the coming weekend (May 10-12). Ellen send an email to the trip leaders to see if we could join them. He said sure....time for a new plan.

Rather than stopping in the Carolinas and Assateague, we decided to go directly to Cape May. We were still a couple of days away, but figured we could make it by Friday evening. The straightest route minimized the Interstates and went up through eastern North Carolina and Virginia, over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, up the Eastern Shore to Lewes, Delaware and, finally, via ferry to Cape May.

As the temperatures were still in the nineties, we wanted to find another campground with electricity for the air conditioner (Are we getting soft??). A couple of county/city parks were near our route and we headed for the one in Kinston, NC, arriving just at dusk. It was an interesting park along the banks of the Neuse River with a museum and picnic areas and a small campground. We were looking for a spot we could just pull into and then out in the morning and the host said we could just park next to a pole in the middle of the camp loop which had electricity and water.

After the sun set the pole lit up with a very bright set of security lights, almost brighter than daylight. I asked one of the hosts as she drove by if there was some way to turn off the light. There wasn't but she said that we could move over to an open area that was dark and had electricity—we did. It was just beyond the No Parking sign and looked like it was used when they had events of some sort as there were about 15 30-Amp outlets on the pole, but it was dark.

As we ate dinner, Ellen mentioned that the county we were in, Lenoir County, was the location of the PBS program, A Chef's Life, which featured a restaurant called Chef and the Farmer where local food was the theme. We had finished dinner when I found it on Google Maps—just on the other side of the river from the park. Maybe next time.

We left early on Friday morning on our way to Norfolk, VA and the bridge-tunnel. There wasn't any squeak from Speedy when we left, but as the day and the van warmed up it returned and was pretty noticeable when we stopped  for lunch at the Eastern Shore of Virginia NWR at the tip of the peninsula.

We took a secondary road route up to Norfolk, mostly on US 13. It was much more interesting and pleasant than the Interstate. At Speedy's pace, driving the more direct secondary roads is probably just as quick, if not quicker, than using the faster Interstates since Speedy rarely goes the speed limit. It is almost always more picturesque. Even in the east, there is much more country than city to pass through.

After lunch we continued up US 13 and the squeak got louder. It was getting a bit disconcerting and when I saw a Dodge dealer, we turned in. They were very helpful and one of their mechanics slid underneath and determined that it was coming from the left front, rather that the rear. He checked everything for looseness and lubricated all of the points, but the squeak remained. The diagnosis was that it was okay to drive home, but we should bring it in when we got there...so on we went.

We made it to the Lewes ferry at about 4:20 pm. The ferry left at 4:15 and the next one was at 6:15, so we had a bit of a wait. The day had been hot and sunny all the way from Kinston, in the 90's most of the way and we anticipated a sunset cruise across Delaware Bay, but when we got to Lewes the fog had moved in and it got rather chilly. When we finally got under way, it was pea-soup fog and we saw absolutely nothing all the way across the bay.

Since the Bird Club schedule was to start each morning at about 5:30, we decided that we should try to stay at the Cape harbor Motor Inn, where the rest of the group was staying. We'd stayed at a nearby campground in the fall, but that took us an extra half hour to get to where they met in the morning. The campgrounds in the area weren't cheap, so we decided to get a room and leave Speedy parked for a couple of days. We called while waiting for the ferry and got the last available room. When we arrived from the ferry, we met the rest of the group. They'd driven down from Massachusetts. We'd driven up from Kinston, NC. We arrived at exactly the same time.