Day 6 - On The Road

Today was a drive day, so there wasn't too much going on today.  The plan was to drive from Bethany Beach, DE to Durham, NC, with a lunch stop on the Virginia Beach boardwalk.  The stated goal was to leave at 10:00, which to me meant 11:30, so when we left at 11:00 we were ahead of the game.  Not sure what was in the stars today, but while driving we passed the Big Pecker Bar & Grill, passed over the Assawoman Bay, passed through Onancock, VA, and someone in the rear of the car passed A LOT of gas.

About an hour or so into the drive we came upon the Chesapeake Bay.  The only way to get across the Bay is via the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.  This was one of the most amazing drives we have seen.  The whole thing is 17 miles of bridge, then tunnel, then bridge, then tunnel, then bridge across what is basically the ocean.  There is no land to either side for the entire 17 miles.  There was some traffic on the expanse, which slowed us down, but it was still quite an amazing ride.

Once we left Bethany, the weather turned rainy and stayed that way the rest of the day.  Most of the time it wasn't a hard rain, but it was rain nonetheless.  The problem with that was it no longer made any sense for us to explore the Virginia Beach boardwalk.  So, for about 30 minutes Debbie tried to locate a Road Food restaurant on the way, to no avail.  Instead we ended up having lunch at the world famous (not really) Virginia Beach Buffalo Wild Wings.

After lunch we had another 3.5 hour drive to Durham, and we arrived around 7:30.  We quickly checked in and looked through some local menus I had printed out and opted for what looked like a southern BBQ place.  We did well, as this was the type of restaurant that we gorged ourselves on during our first trip two years ago.  The first thing on the menu was Smoked Pork Butt.  Had it been Fried Pork Butt I would have been all over it, because everyone knows that I like my Pork Butt fried, not smoked.  So instead I opted for the ribs, as did Brian, while Ethan went with a burger, Debbie got brisket in a potato and Amanda got....a Cobb Salad.  Yup, no burger this time, although I am not sure how much she actually ate.

Yummy

Now we're talking!

The dinner took all of about 30 minutes, since we got there at 8:00 and were back in the car right around 8:30 to head back to the hotel, where Debbie and I did some work (while also catching the Breaking Bad episode that was on tonight).  Tomorrow is college day.  We have a tour of Duke at 10:00, then we will probably head over to check out UNC.  After that it's back on the road to Richmond, VA to attend a minor league baseball game where a high school acquaintance is the batting coach.  Hopefully the weather is better tomorrow.