We Went Across The Sea!

 It's not the most common way people choose when they go north into the New England States but it has certain benefits and a big draw-back. I am talking about the outer route to avoid being swallowed up in big city traffic through Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia.

Leaving our camp in South Carolina, we went north on the I-95 to Emporia, North Carolina. From there Highway 58 is heading east via Suffolk to Norfolk. From Norfolk we took the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. But the problem is getting through Norfolk, a city-monster of the worst imaginable. Not only it is the horrible traffic, but worse still is missing signage to the Chesapeake BBT.

Once we reached it, our stress turned to relaxation. There is a low speed limit of 55mph and seemingly they enforce it as well. So exciting to drive on a road which all-of-a-sudden dives under the surface of the bay, while ships are happily sailing above crossing the tunnel. And then the road appears like a new-born Poseidon out from the depth and continues along bridges. But like Poseidon you get another chance to explore the depth of the Chesapeake Bay when the second tunnel swallows your vehicle. The tunnel then spits you out to more bridges until you reach Cape Charles, VA.

We stayed overnight in a big parking lot where the bridges are ending. There is a beautiful nature trail with overlook across the salt mashes. What a pleasure to walk there in utter peace after the stressful crossing through Norfolk.

The area once was of strategic importance under WWII when German submarines and warships were feared. A huge cannon was built, able to shoot at targets 25 miles away. The cannon I measured to be 23m (82ft) long. A true monster. However, it was never fired!

Overlook salt marsh

So this morning we got up really early, leaving our overnight location to reach Lewes, DE from where I had booked a ferry service to get us across the Delaware Bay.

The trip to Lewes took 3 hours and just like in Norfolk,VA the signage to the ferry terminal was abysmal. But we made it to the ferry terminal 2.5hrs. early. We were let into the staging lines as the first vehicle for the ferry departure at 12:15pm. 

Our arrival at Lewes,DE ferry terminal
Courtesy WEBCAM

We knew that the ticket building has a webcam from where the full staging area can be seen. So we called our family in Germany. They went online and could see us, waving at them. So much fun! Bea's brother even watched our arrival at Cape May on the New Jersey side.

The next 2.5hours we drove along the Garden State Parkway (toll road) ending our day at the Walmart in Freehold, NJ. We have used this overnight location a couple of times earlier. It is rather quiet and peaceful here.

Because of expected frost, we bought plumbing antifreeze here to fill into our fresh water tank. Yes, we can't use it for anything else than the toilet, but that way we can let it go into water lines. 

Approaching Cape May

This image shows the arrival of our ferry at Cape May, NJ
Courtesy WEBCAM

The End Of I-20

                           

                       Traffic can be heavy when approaching big cities

After 5 days at 650kms/day we reached Florence SC where we met with our friend Carmen. 3 days alone were spent on the I-20.

Carmen's rig, a brand new AIRSREAM

Yesterday, we had been in steady contact with our friend Carmen who drove up from Jekyll Island, GA to meet us at the "Midpoint I-95 RV-Park".

The RV-Park is an excellent choice for anyone traveling along the I-95 and wanting to take a break in peaceful surroundings with all the comforts of modern amenities.

Tall pine trees are lining the park roads and for someone like me who likes natural surroundings, the lack of concrete pads is a real blessing.

Planning ahead, we studied weather forecasts and found that it is better to stay yet an extra day to avoid getting into the coldest days back home.

This morning I also got a doctors appointment for March 5.

Then we will have to wait for results of tests.

Carmen walking the dogs

Some Places Have Odd Names

While moving from one state to the next we see a lot of place names. And most of them we just wonder about their meaning. Now today we were driving through Mississippi and near the city of Meridian we saw the name LOST GAP.

This triggered our curiosity and Bea looked it up on Google. (What did we ever do without GOOGLE?)

Down below is what we found. This was published in a WORDPRESS blog.

We concluded today's trip at after 406 miles at a Walmart in Pell City,AL.

      A History of “the” Lost Gap

November 12, 2022 — 1 Comment

On November 1, 2012, Steve Gillespie, Managing Editor of The Meridian Star, referencing the book Railroads of Meridian by J. Parker Lamb, wrote an article in which he detailed the history behind the name Lost Gap:

Lost Gap (just outside of Meridian, Mississippi) got its name because of a compass failure that occurred during construction of the Southern Railroad line around 1859.

For three days two surveying crews each waited on the other to join up with them to lay out the route. Finally their search parties met up.

Underground iron deposits were blamed for the mix-up, skewing the magnetic compasses, which caused the eastbound crew to veer south, and the westbound crew to veer north. Consequently the route has an unplanned section of track running north and south — a “lost gap” in the original route survey.

The Alabama and Vicksburg Railroad operated the rail line through Lost Gap from 1899-1926. A map from this era from Mississippi Rails shows the strange curve in the rail line at Lost Gap.

WHY ALL THIS SMOKE?


Besides of dealing with strange place names, we noticed that our vision forward got sort of limited. The area around Tuscaloosa (another name with a meaning) was enveloped in a grey stinkin' smoke. Again, we googled it and found that the entire Gulf Coast has wildfires from where the smoke drifted north.

Free dump station along the Interstate

Bridge over the Mississippi

Out Of Texas

Texas is a big state and crossing east/west or vice versa takes three days, unless you attempt to want to compete with an airplane.. lol.

We used 3 days and rolled into Louisiana this afternoon.

The state does not range among the financial well-off ones and accordingly, the highway leaves much to be desired. Today it got so bad that the microwave door opened ejecting the rotating glass plate sending it crashing onto the floor, leaving just about a million of tiny glass shards all over. The crashing plate made Dixie jump up and remain in anxiety mode for the rest of the drive. 

Generally, the eastern parts of Texas with the further eastern areas of Louisiana and Mississippi are much prettier than the long boring plains of West Texas. We enjoyed the fresh grass and seeing trees turning green. Even the dandelions were out some places.

So our further plans are to proceed to the Florence,SC area and spend 2 nights in a nice RV park. We will be joined there by a good friend who's coming up from Jekyll Island,GA.

After that, things can get ugly, at least after reaching New Jersey and north of there. A violent winter storm has just dumped tons of snow all the way along the coast and into Canada. How we are gonna make out with that is everybody's guess. But we need to get home.