Archipelago 3-4-Virginia

Mapping     Autistic  Archipelago   

tiny green islands 

in the ocean of concrete -

they are my retreat

Posting from Albuquerque (backtracking)

Mar 20 - 21   VIRGINIA

Wednesday,  Mar 20

After a so-so breakfast off the road in DE, I'm back on the road driving Ocean Hwy R-13 to 

Chincoteaque National Wildlife Refuge, VA   

It's a park right there on a map ->: ocean, bay, swamps, woods, and quite a few people even it is not yet the season. Still quite beautiful and lost of birds. I've spotted a huge eagle overhead while walking a trail - I think it was Golden Eagle; but by the time I remembered that it would be good to take a picture, it was out of reach. I was a bit sleepy there after the previous night, and really just looking for a place to lie down in the sun and vegetate; but I was also at the same time restless, knowing that I need to load videos and pictures and already anticipating all the issues.

Anyway, I have a couple of other pics to liven this page. 

This one is from a little town situated just before the park - their Chamber of Commerce. I stopped there and  asked about the park before driving in, to find out about the fees and then got a bit upset when the woman that came out, said that it was $8 a day; I told her that for this money one should be allowed to stay in the park overnight. I knew they don't allow that, but I just didn't want to go anywhere at this point and was getting aggravated. She started to apologize that it wasn't allowed by their rules! Try to make sense of it, I mean why apologize? Now that, I think, is being nice the NT way, and I rarely get that, so I was a bit disarmed. It was kind of good medicine again.

So I drove to the park, not sure if I'll stay, but the sweet lady told me there were wild horses in the park, and I wanted to see them.  So here (above) is their Chamber of Commerce (it stands on a little rotary island) and somewhere in the other picture (below) all the way in a far back, right in the center are these horses, if you can see them - I've got these horses photographed as they grazed there standing in the water far out, but I think they were too far for my camera. I'm quite sure this is the shot though...

I've got out of there pretty late; I hung there for a while, kind of not sure if I can sneak in after the dark maybe, and sleep there; there were lots of good places there to sleep right in the woods overlooking the water, under the stars, and the weather looked like it would be nice - but I just couldn't find a spot where to leave my car, and I didn't want to get ticketed. Still just before leaving the park, I did my last try and went to the Administration office inside the park and asked the ranger manning the desk straight on, what their policy was on it - and he said they ride around to make sure everybody is gone - so that finally made up my mind to let it go (the idea of staying there for the night). 

When I finally got out of there, it was about 4 pm and just about enough time to drive down south on the peninsula to the next park, which was at the bottom of it on a bay side, and was called  Kiptopeke State Park, right off RT- 13. Now in the state parks, they don't let you sleep in a car, but I knew that the chances they'll ticket the empty car are slim, they don't do it in New York, and besides they had a campground according to the internet; not that I was planning to stay there...

I got there some time later, still with some daylight left to look around, and drove through the park looking for good spots. There were a few but I settled on one near the campground, which was empty but illuminated to some extend by the surrounding lights - the thing I don't like at all; besides I didn't want to be there as it would've made me kind of obligated to pay for staying in the campground, even there was not a soul there and the facilities were closed. 

The spot I found was on the woody side road that led to a trail going straight to wooden stairs descending through the dunes to the beach; quite beautiful, and I could sleep in the woods not far from my car while looking down at the water - just a really great spot. I parked my car there and went down to the beach and walked and ran a bit all the way to the end of the park where private houses stood high on the hills, and then all the way to the other end to the Marina where also the nature trail-head was - that trail was going through some pretty interesting swampy vegetation and some loud wildlife sounding out all over around the trail, just before the dusk; all kinds of sounds.

I walked for a while there; then turned back and walked to my car, just as I thought when the rangers would start driving around, asking people to leave - there were a few cars parked here and there, birders I think mostly. I got there just in time to see the ranger's truck driving off to marina; I didn't want them to give me notice, so I went down the stairs to the beach, walked some distance away from the car, picked a nice spot near water in the dunes, that pretty much made me invisible unless somebody came right up to me, and stretched there. The sun was going down into the water right there and I took a lot of pictures, trying to capture the progression of the dusk and the twilight. That was pretty interesting, so here are few of them:

There was this some kind of a bunker and old ships tied together out there, some distance from the shore; I think it was similar to the bunker I saw in Cape May; here it is just before the dusk  ->

And this one below is right next to the spot where I was resting, concealed from the ranger's eyes by the tall sage grass as the sunset began to change colors. 

They were looking for me, I think up there, and around the marina; I heard their truck stopping, by the sound of it, next to my car, and later I could see through the grass, their truck idling around at marina after everybody left; but they couldn't see me behind the grass where I was; I just sat there making pictures, until they left and it was just as the sun went down.

These two pictures were shot from there - looking at the sun and the water; I shot a series showing the progression, but these two should give an idea of a particular sunset it was.

Then I took my last picture - full moon in the sky that was still day blue - I guess its my favorite -

and walked up the stairs to my car, got my pad and sleeping bag, put another layer of warm close on (it was getting cold) walked to the spot I picked and that 

was NIGHT 3 - at the Kiptopeke State Park.

That night was the best since I left home; with a ripe moon surrounded by the stars looking at me


And in the morning, 
Mar 21, I was up at dawn that was freezing and yet good - here it is (below) - from the car as I drove off early to avoid nonsense.

Looks just like sunset, and yet it's somehow different...


Thursday, March 21, 
On a way to North Carolina crossing Chesapeake bay over the 18 mile bridge and continuing on...