Lexington VA to Nags Head NC

 

Tuesday May 2, 2023

Breakfast by chef Steve was great and we enjoyed more history stories about family connections.  Finally, about 10:30 we made ourselves get in the van and head east across Virginia.  We planned a visit to the Outer Banks before a short visit with Jeff, Robin, Daniel, and Sara before heading home.  

Traffic was light on I 64 as we headed across the mountains at Waynesboro; then around Charlottesville and Richmond.  We got off in Williamsburg for gas and back on I 64 headed towards Norfolk.  Talk about a confusing collection of highways in this Newport News, Hampton Roads, Norfolk area! About Williamsburg the traffic picked up and was heavy the rest of the day.  Before getting too deep into the maze we stopped at an exit with a Wendy’s and Chick-fil-A determined to eat at whichever came first.  We ate at a Chick-fil-A and enjoyed a nice lunch.  In fact this was a very quiet Chick-Fil-A.     I can’t really remember all the various roads we were on but a highlight was the tunnel/bridge that took us from Hampton Roads to Chesapeake.  When we finally came out of the maze of roads, tunnels, and bridges we were on a short toll road that took us into North Carolina right south of Virginia Beach.  We were about an hour away from the Outer Banks. 

We considered stopping here - glad we did not.

Busy port of Norfolk/Hampton

Entering the Tunnel

Long bridge headed to NC

Finally about 4:30 we reached Nags Head and our hotel.  We are staying at a Holiday Inn Express this trip.  We have stayed a couple times at the Comfort Inn in Nags Head near Whalebone Junction, but it has poor beach access and the rooms really do not face the ocean.  So, we are trying a different one.  We are on the 5^th floor with a direct view of the ocean and what looks like much better access to the beach.  A bit of rest and we headed out for our first of 3 seafood dinners.  We chose Miller’s seafood for night one – crazy parking lot which we remembered after we got into it and had to back out!   Jane had one of the specials – blacked red drum, grilled shrimp, and fried clams.  All three were excellent.  Ben had a flounder with crab and citrus hollandaise sauce – he felt it was only OK.  This location was the winner of the hush puppy contest our last trip over this way.  (We sampled hush puppies from Morehead City to Nags Head for a week a few years ago. Sadly, you do not get hush puppies here any longer unless you order a $4 basket of them – to sample one- we were not about to get an entire basket – so we don’t know if they still measure up!)  We enjoyed watching two guys with parasails while we ate dinner.

Delish clams, shrimp, and red fish 

OK Flounder with crab hollandaise topping