Another day, another morning waking up in a Cracker Barrel restaurant parking lot, but appreciating that we tend to have a decent night's sleep here. We drove to waterfront city of Norfolk in Virginia, home to a major naval base. Here, our first stop (well, we just drove past and Lisette took a photo of it), was of Navigator, near Norfolk Airport. The monument is of a blue heron made from decommissioned plane parts, standing at 24 feet tall and with a 44 feet wingspan, celebrating the miracle of flight and paying homage to the city where many blue herons reside. This bird sculpture reminded us of the Recycled Roadrunner Sculpture in Las Cruces, New Mexico that we'd seen all the way back on Day 27(!) of our trip, constructed with landfill materials including old phones, bike parts, and other random items. It's funny to see things and now say "this reminds me of [insert place or attraction]" more often, since we've been on the road for quite a while now!
Artsy Norfolk
Since Norfolk is home to a naval base, we didn't expect it to be so artsy, but further along, we were quite impressed with the multiple creative and colorful murals and objects that we found. In downtown Norfolk, there was one particularly artsy street that included the Cementiscope, a fun and interactive sculpture of a cement mixer, that has a kaleidoscope inside that you can "mix" to see the lights bouncing around within it when you peer in--including your own reflection.
St. Paul's Episcopal Church is a stately brick building built in the colonial Georgian architecture style. Built in 1739, it's the oldest and only remaining pre-Revolutionary War buildings in downtown Norfolk. The church is one of those churches that has a burying ground with the graves of many of Norfolkâs early citizens all around the perimeter (which can feel a bit eerie--does it feel this way to folks that go to services here every week, having to walk past all these old tombs?). We went not to be spooked out, though, but to see if we could spot the cannonball that was fired and became lodged in the side of the church by a ship in the Royal Navy back in 1776. Like the Navigator we saw earlier in the day, it also reminded us of another attraction we'd visited, as the town of Lewes in Delaware also has a cannonball-lodged building that we checked out!
Lights in Portsmouth
Driving on to the city of Portsmouth in southeast Virginia, it was a pit stop to break up the drive, checking dropping in to see Fresnel Lens, a large, historic lens that includes over 300 prisms and weighs over 2,500 pounds, which was removed from the Hog Island Lighthouse before being placed on public display. We tend to see so many these lenses from way down below at the base of these tall structures, so it was cool to see the top part of a lighthouse up close, seeing all the light prisms reflected within it.
Since we were still on the waterfront, it made sense that the other attraction here was Lightship Portsmouth Museum, a museum on the ship that features maritime artifacts. It was closed for the season, but the ship itself is a fun sight, beaming a bright, fire-red color that's hard to miss.
Coastal Virginia
We've been to a few popular, beachside resort towns on this trip--like Atlantic City in New Jersey, and Ocean City in Maryland--and now we dropped in to Virginia Beach, Virginia's equivalent. On one end of a charming street with historic and expensive-looking homes, we checked out the beautiful facade of the Cavalier South Beach Hotel, built during the roaring '20s (1920s, not this decade!). The whole street was really picturesque, and there were a few folks also busy adorning it with decorations for the holidays.
We went to Virginia Beach, which undoubtedly would have been busy over the summer, but as we were there in the off season the entire area was quiet. To us, it seemed to be very similar to the other popular beachside towns we've been to, like Atlantic City in New Jersey and Ocean City in Maryland, so we stayed long enough to simply wander onto the sand and run around with Sheila.
You've likely heard of Jurassic Park, but are you familiar with Jerrassic Park? Outside the gates of the Military Aviation Museum in Virginia Beach, we found a host of metal sculpture dinosaurs (actually, what are a group of different dinosaurs called? Herds? Packs?), surrounding a pond in the middle (and there was, in fact, one dinosaur wading in the pond). There were sculptures of raptors, triceratops, and dinosaur eggs hatching, as well as a big woolly mammoth and saber-toothed tiger. There was nobody there when we visited, but it's free to enter and a kitschy but fun roadside attraction.
By this time, it was late afternoon, and time to find a place to stop for the night! We found a rest area with toilets along the highway to stop for the evening. It may not seem like we saw a ton today, but there's a lot of driving and we're definitely needing to incorporate more breaks, while also noting that the earlier sunsets nowadays!