Day 23 -- Travel from Orlando, Florida to Virginia Beach, Virginia
Friday 7/20/2001
We got up at 3am and started preparing for our departure. As most of the things were prepared yesterday, it took us a bit less than an hour to be on the road. It was warm and somewhat muggy when we left. I was wondering if we'd be able to pull out of our specific site, but we slid out in one swoop without coming too near any obstacles.
Early morning departures like this are nice. The roads are nearly empty, it is cool and the kids usually sleep for the first couple of hours. By 6:30am we hit Jacksonville and it must have been just before any real rush hour traffic. By 9 o'clock, after 5 hours and about 300 miles on the road, we made a refueling and rest stop in South Carolina. It was just a gas station and there was not much safe place for the kids to roam around. We're running at 9.2mpg. The roads so far have been mostly flat. We were wondering if we'd be hit by bad weather today, as the sunrise did not contribute with immediate heat. We could see clouds to the west of us as we were parked.
Soon after we departed from our breakfast stop, we went through several hours of on/off rain showers. By about noon we passed by Florence, South Carolina. After about five hours on the road, we looked for a good rest area. Unfortunately we missed the one near exit 98 on I-95N. So we ended up going to a gas station a few miles further up and taking a rest there. We've now covered 600 miles so far. This time about 9.0mpg. Once again not really a place for kids to roam around, but at least it felt a bit more safe than the previous one we stopped at. A sticker on the gas pump read: Pay inside before using the pump at night, with at night scratched out. We were in the middle of nowhere so I thought this was a joke, but the darn pump would not come on until I walked inside and left my VISA card with the clerk! The gas was a tad more expensive here ($1.39) and after we left I got the impression that the pump nozzle had shut off pumping before the tank was completely full.
We hit the road again, knowing that we only had about 4 hours and 200 miles left to go. After about 1 1/2 hour we crossed the border over into Virginia. That felt nice. Almost there. Virginia Beach is not close to I-95. You have to travel another 90 miles eastward. We used mainly highway 58 which then changed over into I-264. At one point, as we got into denser city traffic huge signs stated that anyone with trailers wider than 8ft (applies to us) or hazardous material or propane tanks (applies to us) must stop for inspection. I was getting concerned that we may not be able to get through the two tunnels. I pulled off on the last exit before the tunnels, affraid that I may end up getting into a small and narrow tunnel. I asked at a gas station and they said we should be ok. We could then see big trucks going on I-264 towards the tunnels, past the last exit, so we just went back up again. Click here for map of general area.
The GPS and laptop helped us a great deal. But, beware of that the map provided with the latest version of Street Atlas USA is not 100% up to date. On numerous occasions, including this one, we've been on roads that are not supposed to be there, etc. As we approached the campground and had to leave the big highway, we followed the map it had drawn for us. Only to find that the road ended in the middle of a turn, but the map stated that it should have continued past the fence!!! So we had to find another way around. We eventually got to the campground around 6:30pm. It appears to be nice and neat and rather large.
This is a "good" sign
Our campground is called Holida Trav-L-Park of Virginia Beach. We had been assigned campsite #179 in advance. After check-in, we went over there and tried to park. It was a horrible site with regards to slope. It also appeared to be in a high traffic area and it really did not have much room to speak of. After having piled up about 6 inches of wood on one side of the trailer, I began unhitching it from the truck. But I could feel serious forces at play when I tried to release it so I got second thoughts. The last thing I wanted to see was the trailer starting to slide. I tried to apply more pressure to the wheel locks, but it did not seem to help. I went back up to the reception and asked for wood blocks or another site. They offered me two other sites and I ended up picking site #199. That site was much, much better. Not only more level but it also appears to be one of the biggest sites on the campground. We now have a lot of room for the kids to play. Plus we have nobody parked next to us! Only problem was that we'd lost 1 hour on the previous site so we were now approaching 8pm. Meanwhile, everyone was very tired and that did not help. To our great surprise, another newer Airstream pulled up and parked opposite our trailer. I complemented the owner, of course. It was a 1999 31ft. Even though it did not have any WBCCI numbers on it, I would later learn that they were members of one of the units here in Virginia.
After we were complete, we ate dinner. bbq:d burgers with Roquefort cheese. Yum. Isabella and Erik set up the tent outside. It was tough to drive the tent sticks into the ground. Once they were done, they mutually agreed that both of them could not sleep in it at the same time. So Erik decided to sleep in the trailer instead, while Isabella took the tent. Erik was glad to be back in the couch-bed all by himself. He's been sleeping on the floor during this trip because he cannot stand sharing bed with Isabella anymore; they fight too much. We went to bed just after 9pm, very exhausted.