Bridges, tunnels, beaches and wetlands in East Maryland

The end of our first week of our US roadtrip was a transition day. It was our longest planned drive, which would exceptionally take up most of the day. We had to get from Baltimore to Virginia Beach and we had decided to pas through the East Maryland shore and the Virginia peninsula.

It was a day full of impressive long bridges across "river" bays that looked like the sea.  We first passed the 7 km double Chesapeake Bay Bridge at the start of the day and at the end of the day we crossed the wider Chesapeak Bay via the 37 km Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel system. 

In order to break our longest driving day , we stopped at the Blackwater National Wildlife refuge in east Maryland. This vast area of forests and wetlands is a bit remote, south of Cambridge, Maryland. It doesn't seem to be the most touristic hotspot, but I had spotted the green area on the map when scrolling our itinerary and I figured a bit of nature would be nice after our city tripping the previous week.  We stopped at the visitor center where we watched the exhibits, eavesdropped a guide touring with a bus group, watched the webcams on an eagle's nest.

Then we took the car to ride the "wildlife drive" through the wetlands and forests with a dozen of interpretative stops along the way .  Due to the frequent stopping on the deserted one-way road we allowed Beertje to sit on my lap and leave Kabouter's belt unbuckled in order to optimise their birdspotting.  Needless to say they were delighted. We spotted several Eagle (nests), Ospreys, turtles, geese, a rare type of squirrel and other wildlife. 

We headed off to the rather quiet Salisbury where we found a nice litte terrace in the shade to have lunch. The children left their marks all over the available chalk wall...and their own clothing. 

At the end of the afternoon after another while of driving (in the mean time back in Virginia), we stopped in Cape Charles, just before crossing the bay again. I had seen some pitoresque pictures and read an interesting article on the clam industry there but the town (despite its historique center with indeed some more victorian looking houses) was pretty dead and not at all touristic. We stretched our legs very shortly at the shore where we could view a part of the nearby Chesapeak Bridge Tunnel across the water already.  At our feet, stingray seemed to be flapping their wings now and then above the water, which was pretty awesome. And then we were off back to the mainland of Virginia to spend a few days at the beach.