Trip days: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8-9 | 10-12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20
21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38
39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51

Day 20 - 5/10

I got everything put back on my bike and checked out of the motel in Ocracoke at around 10:00am. A family from Maryland acosted me in the parking lot and, after asking "did you ride all the way out here from Washington?", were really interested to hear about my trip. I road north on Ocracoke to the Ocracoke / Hatteras ferry. It's a short 40 minute boat ride between the two. I continued north on Cape Hatteras Island up through Kitty Hawk and then across the highway 158 bridge and followed 158 north to highway 12 and then on up to Norfolk, Virginia. What did I think of the Outer Banks? They were nice, but a little touristy and not that special. Coming from the west coast all the scenery and general feel was pretty much the same as what can be found on the Oregon coast. Much of the Outer banks isn't much wider than the central road running north and south along it. Often times you can see water in both directions and no land in sight in the distance. That was pretty cool, but all in all the whole area is really touristy.

I passed through Norfolk and crossed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel thing-a-muh-jig. The bridge tunnel thing was pretty neat. It consisted of a really long bridge with two sections of it sunk down into tunnels so that ships can get by it even if enemies destroy parts of the bridge. For much of the crossing I couldn't see land in any direction.

Once onto the Chesapeake peninsula that extends down from Maryland I found a nice hole in the wall barbecue place and had an excellent pork and chicken BBQ dinner with french fries, potato salad, and hush puppies! Mmmmm, hush puppies... my new found deep fat fried friends. After a quick mother's day call (a day early) to my mom and I was back on the road to Chincoteague and eventually a camp ground in Assateague. I choked when I found out that it would be $27 to camp for the night. Shoot, I paid $29 to stay in a Ramada Inn outside memphis. Anyways, it was worth it. The tent area is facing the slew between Chincoteague island and Assateague island where the Chincoteague National Park is at. I found a nice spot under some trees facing east towards the Assateague light house. It's a nice cool 70 degrees, and the wildlife in the nature preserve across the slew from my tent site is making all sorts of comforting racket.

Total Mileage for Day: 316
Mileage on Odometer: 23,036