April 10, 2009

Today was both my and Steph's day off of work, so we planned a day of fun.

First we ate lunch at Boston Market in Virginia Beach.

Then we went to Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge on Sandpiper Road. We rode our bikes from the Little Island Park to the entrance of Back Bay. I thought that hikers and bikers were free to enter, and it was just vehicles that were charged $5 per carload. Thankfully we had cash on us, because the fee is $2/person for bikers. We rode through the Refuge on the Dike trail all the way to the False Cape State Park and another 2 miles through a Virginia Wildlife & Birding Trail...then back. In total it was a 14 mile bike ride. It wasn't hard either. Beautiful weather, nice pace, gravel and sand roads. We discovered that False Cape State Park offers primitive camping on the beach, and the primitive part is that you have to bike or hike the 6 miles from Little Island Park parking lot to the camp sites. We definitely want to do that and learned that we can even bring the dogs with us.

On our way back to the Little Island Park, we found a tiny, newborn snapping turtle in the middle of the road, trying to get down to the water. He was the most adorable little guy, and kept using his, um...flipper??? to rub his eye to get it to open to see us...that's how young he was! After contemplating what we should do, we carried him to the side of the road to which he was heading. We let the wildlife officer at the park entrance know what we had done, and he said it was the right thing....that they are seeing a lot of non-loggerhead baby turtles trying to cross the street and that they don't do much for them, other than assist them across the street to keep them from getting hit.



After that excitement, we picnicked on the beach at Little Island Park. There were hardly any people on the beach, and for a while we couldn't figure out why. It's a beautiful, empty, sandy beach with big crashing waves and a fishing pier. Then the winds picked up...yea, that's why. We're STILL picking sand out of every bodily orifice. I'm pretty sure we ate a few ounces of grit with our lunch.

PS Not sure why the bathrooms at Little Island weren't open yet, but it would be nice if they would get on that...People have to pee!