Greg & Camille Go Bike

We woke up to a cold, dark, quiet morning and started to break down camp. Our hope was that we'd be finished quickly enough to catch the sun rise on the beach, but between drying dew off the tent, shaking off morning grogginess and biking the 4+ miles to an eastward facing beach, that definitely didn't happen. We arrived at the Virginia Beach boardwalk at least half an hour after sunrise but it was still nice to see the sun low on the horizon. There was some exercise equipment setup on the beach (monkey bars, a climbing rope, rings) and we spent some time trying them out.

Looking around for a good breakfast spot, Camille excitedly shouted out when she found Ray Ray's at the Mayflower, a Filipino inspired diner! We waited ~15 minutes for them to open at 8 am and were both treated to a delicious stack of ube pancakes with some type of sweet coconut sauce. We also ordered a veggie omelet to split.

We left Ray Ray's around 8:30, with 40 miles to the Knott Island-Currituck ferry. We were planning for the noon ferry. If we missed it, we'd have to wait another 2 hours and would certainly be biking in the dark at the end of the day. We were both feeling a anxious about that possibility.

We followed boardwalk, multi-use paths and lightly trafficked suburban roads out of Virginia Beach. The real highlight of the day was 25 miles biking by and through the Back Bay and Mackay Island National Wildlife Refuges. It was beautiful, wooded and marshy land interspersed with occasional stretches by farms and pastures. Our route there was well-traveled by cyclists; we passed by many groups who seemed to traverse these multi-use paths, residential streets, and rural roads as a regular ritual. "I should join your group!" one lady called out to us as her crew rolled along. As we pressed on, we grew ever more tired from racing the clock and fighting tough headwinds, but in the end, we arrived at the ferry with more than half an hour to spare.

We snacked while we waited for the ferry to arrive. The crossing was pleasant with clear horizons and a wonderful sea breeze. After the crossing, our route pretty quickly turned sour. Most of the remainder of the day was spent biking along the side of the Caratoke Highway (US 158), a 5 lane highway with 2 lanes in each direction and a center turning lane. The road's shoulder was truly only shoulder width and we narrowly fit. Most cars did give us a pretty wide berth fully switching lanes to pass, but a few did not and left us feeling anxious.

US 158 concluded with a mad dash across a ~3 mile bridge. Contrary to the comments we'd found on-line, there were no "Share the Road" signs in sight and the shoulder was certainly not wide enough to fit a broken down car. We crossed it at a pretty good clip (averaging ~22 MPH) and most of the cars seemed pretty respectful when passing.

On the other side, we arrived at Bodie Island and our route turned into mostly multi-use paths following the western shore. Camille spotted a short path to a secluded beach off the side of the trail and we plopped our bikes down and took in the sunset. After the sun dropped below the horizon, we briefly stopped off at our Air B&B and then walked a mile in the dark for groceries. Returning to the Air B&B, we made freezer aisle pizza and Camille got creative with a cabbage, chickpea and chili stew. Greg thought it was delicious and absolutely adored the alliteration. We felt pretty cozy and realizing tomorrow (Sunday) meant another day of weekend biking by the shore, we decided to shuffle around our rest days. Tomorrow we would stay put.