Day 19 - Pettigrew St. Pk. NC to Kiptopeke St. Pk. Virginia

You know, we never did see anyone at Pettigrew St. Pk. We were by ourselves the entire stay. The night was uneventful and actually it wasn't as bad sleeping here as it was at Lake Lincoln in MS. Took showers and hit the road for Virginia. The goal for the day was pretty much planned out to take us to Kitty Hawk, NC and then from there decide where we were going based on how much time we had left in the day.

Kitty Hawk was amazing! Dylan said to me, "what's Kitty Hawk?" prior to us getting there and I had to explain to him about Wilbur and Oroville and how they did their thing back in the early 1900's. The National Park Service has done a good job setting up the park and showing how they first accomplished flight. Standing atop the hill while looking out at the landing field gave you a real sense of the size of their balls as they took off in their glider for the first time. I can only imagine how scary it must have been once they actually started mastering powered flight. It would be tantamount, in this day and age, of being the first person to get "beamed" to another place, a la Star Trek. Barely 100 years later, we have people casually flying around space on such a regular basis that we don't even know anymore when the Space Shuttle takes off or lands. Remember when rocket launches to the moon were broadcast live on every channel and it was the only thing that people talked about? If you're younger than me, you probably don't remember. I vividly remember sitting on Aunt Dora's living room floor watching Man set foot on the moon for the very first time. Yes, I'm that old!!

So....we're driving along and I notice out of the corner of my eye a "Grave Digger" monster truck half buried in a field. Huh? I look closer and it was the home of the Grave Digger monster truck franchise. We bang a "U'y" and drive into the parking lot. Sure enough, this is where they build these monster trucks. They were everywhere and it was quite the scene. Who knew? We were in the middle of nowhere NC. Kinda cool the things you see on the road.

Kiptopeke St. Pk. was right across the 24 mile long Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Very weird concept to be 12 miles out to sea in your car. We found our campsite in the quite full park and began to notice that most of the people around us were blond, very tan and of stout build. We picked a site that had a most attractive teenage girl next door (I'm always thinking of my son) and setup shop. As we were setting up, we noticed that nobody was speaking English. Listening closer, we determined that it was Russian. Hmmm..... After getting everything setup, we decided to go for a bike ride and check out the beach and see the sights. More Russians. Hmmm.... As we rode through the park, we saw names on the camp posts like, Ivanhov, Checkov, Burisky, Blablapov, Purpinsky, Makingitupinsky, etc. What the hell was going on here? Our site was right next to a trail that led to the beach so as the family next door was walking back to their site, I struck up a conversation with one of the men. Seems that they were Ukrainian and it was just a huge get together of extended families there at the park. Literally, of over 300 sites, I'll bet at least 1/3 of them were Ukrainians. It was kind of like we were camping in the Ukraine!!!

Had a good time riding around on the bikes. Saw some deer, talked to Sandra and found out about the big earthquake in SoCal, watched people catch fish, talked to some kids who were catching crab after crab after crab, stumbled upon a Geocache by accident, played cards back at the site and got my ass KICKED by my son who I taught the game to, had some burgers and hit the hay! All good.

5:55AM and I get up to take a pee. Nobody is stirring yet in the campground. I feel a little mist come down through the trees. I just assumed that it was a little squirrel piss or something. You know how trees feel kind of wet underneath them sometimes? Well, I finish and crawl back into the tent for a little more sleep. Knowing that the camp was going to start getting up, I put earplugs in. About 15 minutes later, I'm awakened by Dylan stirring and sitting straight up. I yank out the earplugs and hear him say, "Dad, it's raining". SHIT!! We bolted up out of bed and started dismantling camp before everything got too wet. By about 6:40, we were in the car headed out to the highway and looking for coffee. Thank goodness that there are McDonald's virtually everywhere and they have fantastic coffee. Really....and much cheaper than Starbucks or Coffee Bean.

Washington DC was our destination and the NAV Chick said we'd be there before noon. Cool!