Duck Crossing!

 

This evening we are staying in a small motel  in the Main Street of Chincoteague  Island on Virginia's Eastern Shore.  

Having started our day at Virginia Beach (where our hotel was beside this very large statue of Neptune - photographed last night) we travelled onto the peninsula - which is sandwiched between the Atlantic Ocean and Chesapeake Bay - via an extraordinary feat of engineering - the 17 mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel which enables crossing the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.

It is hard to convey the scale of the bridge in a few photos.  It comprises two bridges alongside each other - the original bridge was built in 1966 and carried two way traffic, the second bridge was added some thirty years later so that there is now one bridge in each direction.

The only place that you can stop on the bridge is just before the first tunnel where there is a visitor centre and restaurant.  So we stopped to look.  There is something rather disconcerting about standing at the end of the bridge and looking across a wide, deep shipping channel to the start of the bridge the other side of the tunnel.

The need for adequate shipping channels was evident from the size of the ships passing through.

The tunnels are two way, well lit and most importantly, dry!



It really is a magnificent feat of engineering and no doubt if the weather had been better the views would have been quite spectacular.

It has been raining since we arrived in Chincoteague, unfortunately.  This line of ducks suddenly appeared from a side road and headed straight across the road..thankfully at that moment there was little traffic!

PS

In the several days that we were staying, we several times saw the ducks crossing the road to and fro.  David photographed them again stopping the traffic on Sunday morning...

Thank you for all my birthday cards, wishes and gifts.  It has been a lovely day, even if a little more grey and damp than I hoped.