Today was the coldest yet. It was raining, windy and about 50 degrees when we started. Though the rain stopped, the wind and cold never did. We crossed into Virginia, our 9th state of this trip, six miles into the ride. I was comfortable when I was riding, but got very cold when we stopped to snack and rest 37 miles into the trip. The site was at a Methodist church, home of the oldest running sunday school in the US (see above). After 78 miles of riding our support staff loaded us and the bikes in and on the vans for a trip across Chesapeake Bay (above). The bridge is 20 miles across and consists of a series of low-level trestles interrupted by two one-mile tunnels beneath ship navigation channels. There is no shoulder in the tunnels so we couldn't ride our bikes.
We are now in a hotel between Virginia Beach and Norfolk, areas which hold some history for me. When I left for Vietnam in March of 1970, I took off from NAS Oceana, in Virginia Beach, to land on the Norfolk-based USS America, at sea just off the coast. When I left for my second cruise in early 1971, I flew into Naval Station Norfolk where my A-3 was hoisted onto the USS America via crane. I remember calling my future wife Jeanne to say goodbye from a pay phone on the pier the night before we set sail. In those days we didn't have cell phones and we couldn't call or e-mail from the ship. We actually wrote letters. Jeanne and I had met in Alameda, CA between my two cruises. Tomorrow, we head for Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, site of the Wright Brothers' first flight (no, it wasn't Kitty Hawk, according to Wikipedia).
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