Road trip to Cape Charles

After visiting Kiptopeke State Park on Saturday, James and Anne and I set off on a little road trip. The toll to get over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to the Eastern Shore is pretty steep ($17 round-trip), and it seemed like a waste to drive right back without exploring a little more. We ended up spending a few hours poking around Cape Charles, and by the end of the day, decided we'd definitely gotten our money's worth.

(As an aside, I think I've decided that winter is one of my favorite times to visit beach towns. It's not crowded with tourists, which means the locals aren't sick of us yet, and that means we can spend more time talking to them and getting to know the ins and outs of the place. Also, you can have a good scope and find out the best spots -- that way if you do come back in summer, you'll already know just where to go to have a good time. And finally, the beach has a special kind of beauty in the winter -- the landscape is so austere, and without the distraction of sand toys and swimming and boogie boards and sunburn, you can appreciate its beauty a little more. Bonus: THERE ARE NO MOSQUITOES. The Eastern Shore has a little bit of a mosquito problem in summer... my mom likes to tell a story about visiting Wallop's Island for work and looking down to see her nude pantyhose BLACK with the little suckers. Shudder.)

We started off our Cape Charles adventure with lunch at Sting-Ray's restaurant in Capeville. Sting-Ray's is a quintessential stop if you're in the area, one of those places that should be featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives (if it hasn't been already). From the outside, the restaurant doesn't look like much -- it's actually located inside of an Exxon station. But the food is amazing. Tons of fresh, local seafood, including oysters, crab, and fried drum, navy bean soup and clam chowder, and homemade pies for dessert.

After we ate, we took a turn down a long country road and found ourselves at the old site of Arlington plantation, home to the Custis family (Daniel Custis was the first husband of George Washington's wife, Martha). In it's day, Arlington was the most architecturally sophisticated house in the country and was an important location in Bacon's Rebellion, an important clash between the American colonists and their English governors. Unfortunately, Arlington is no longer standing, but the old foundation has been preserved, along with the family tomb (the O.G. Arlington cemetery) situated picturesquely by the bay.




From there, we headed down to the Cape Charles Historic District, and spent a while walking and viewing some of the town's old Victorian mansions. Did you know that Cape Charles has the highest concentration of Victorian buildings anywhere on the East Coast? The town was planned and built between the 1880s and 1920s, which means every single house we saw was loaded withgingerbread scrollwork, turret towers, and roof gables. We stopped for a while at Central Park and at the Cape Charles beach, which happens to be the only public bayside beach on the Eastern Shore. It was gorgeous, with a seawall and a sweet beach pavilion -- and even a few intrepid swimmers braving the cold, cold waves. We didn't -- we're not that adventurous. But we did promise we'd come back and test the waters when the weather is warmer.

We finished with a trip to Rayfield's Pharmacy, which features an old-fashioned soda fountain and jukebox, where we got chocolate malteds and watched Baby A. boogie down.

 

All in all, it was a rambly day, full of local flavor, new and interesting sights and sounds. The stuff the very best road trips are made of.

Have you ever been to Cape Charles? What are your favorite Eastern Shore destinations?