Confederate Country

We didn't realize how lucky we were to miss the many tornadoes around here until we watched the news and drove only 2 miles south of our hotel.  There was a swath of destruction across the highway with massive trees uprooted, or snapped in half like matchsticks. 10 people died locally and hundreds were injured...
Today however, the sun shone and the 70 degree temperature made it perfect for exploring Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia on our bikes.  Dating back to 1699, this area is a combination of 88 preserved buildings and hundreds more that have been moved to the site to re-create an authentic colonial town.  It's Black Creek Pioneer Village on steroids!  We were really glad to have our bikes again as it covers a really large area.  We've run smack into Spring Break for most schools in this area, so it was packed, but that only provided an excellent obstacle course for Jim on his bike.

You can see that it's very picturesque and kids can even rent costumes to walk around in - very cute.

Jim's other form of entertainment was zipping around after the horses...

Next stop was Norfolk, Virginia which entailed driving over a 5 km open water bridge across the Chesapeake Bay/ocean.  Celia was not too thrilled about this, so the plan to drive to Cape Charles tomorrow has been changed - it has a 23 km open water bridge!!!
We knew we were truly in the south when we saw the monument in Norfolk dedicated "to our Confederate dead."
We're staying in a really nice hotel right on the water with incredible views from our window, including this huge Navy vessel - Norfolk is the largest Navy base on the east coast.

An after dinner stroll through the old section of Norfolk was heavenly - warm and intoxicating scents from the blooms all around.

  The temperature is climbing to 80 degrees tomorrow, so we're breaking out the sandals!