I recently took a 10-day, 1,800-mile roll-about (kind of like a “walk-about” but on two-wheels!). I’ll give more specifics in my next post about what prompted me to jump on the bike and head north, but for now, I’ll share my first couple of days on the road with y’all. Sticking to two-lane backroads as much as possible, I overnighted in Virginia Beach, then took the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel over to Assateague Island National Seashore and toured the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Scenic Byway. Lots of cool sights and educational experiences along the way!
Part of the Colonial National Historical Park, the Cape Henry Lighthouses have protected vessels in the Chesapeake Bay since the late 1700s. Located on an active military base, Fort Story, the older of the two lighthouses (brown one on the left) was completed in 1792 and was the first federal work project of the new United States government. The “new” (black and white one on the right), and still active lighthouse was built in 1881 a mere 350 feet from the original, when concerns about the older version’s integrity after being damaged by Confederate forces during the Civil War. Fort Story became a military installation in 1914 and served as a coast artillery post for World Wars I and II.
The Cape Henry Lighthouse’s history extends all the way back to the War of 1812.
Any time I’m in the Virginia Beach area, I go to Chix for scrumptious crab cakes with a view.
Who doesn’t love a waterfront sunset?! Notice the silhouette of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel in the background (behind the abandoned pylons), my route of travel the next day. At almost 18 miles in length, this combination of bridges and tunnels was worth the $14 toll to experience.
My quest to visit all 424 National Park Service units has led me to some interesting, and beautiful, sites I would never have ventured to were it not for this epic, educational, and scenic NPS scavenger hunt! Assateague Island National Seashore partners with the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge for an incredible experience on this unique island – an example of the diversity of sites in the NPS system.
According to the NPS website, “Assateague [Island] stretches for 37 miles along the coasts of Maryland and Virginia, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Sinepuxent and Chincoteague Bays to the west. Forests, marshes, beaches, shrublands, grasslands and dunes, can all be found within the Seashore’s boundaries.”
“The “wild” horses on Assateague are actually feral animals, meaning that they are descendants of domestic animals that have reverted to a wild state. Horses tough enough to survive the scorching heat, abundant mosquitoes, stormy weather and poor quality food found on this remote, windswept barrier island have formed a unique wild horse society. Local folklore describes the Assateague horses as survivors of a shipwreck off the Virginia coast. While this dramatic tale of struggle and survival is popular, there are no records yet that confirm it. The most plausible explanation is that they are the descendants of horses that were brought to barrier islands like Assateague in the late 17th century by mainland owners to avoid fencing laws and taxation of livestock.” NPS website
The Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Scenic Byway is made up of mostly two-lane roads throughout Dorchester County in Maryland. It pieces together significant locations in Harriet Tubman’s life from the time of her birth and enslavement to that of a heroic, free woman. The visitors center is a great place to learn more about this Underground Railroad Conductor, nurse, spy, suffragist, and all-around tough-as-nails woman.
The building in this pic is the Bucktown Store, the site where Harriet suffered a terrible head injury when an overseer threw a 2-lb iron weight at another enslaved person, but missed and hit her in the head instead. The terrible head injury she suffered, now suspected to have been temporal lobe epilepsy based on her lifelong symptoms following the event (Larson, 2003), changed her physically and mentally from that moment forward.
The route passes through pristine waterways and farmland, including the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, home to hundreds of species of fauna and flora, all viewable from 5 miles of hiking and 17 miles of paddling trails. So much to see and do!
FitHippie Adventures 
I love this trip .there is so much beauty and lessons
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And that’s just the first 2 days 😀
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