After our stay in Washington, D.C. we crossed the Chesapeake Bay (for the first time) and camped at Trap Pond State Park Campground in Delaware for Shabbat, voted one of the top ten state campgrounds, and we believe it. After being in big cities it was nice to get back to nature. There were more places where we could walk within techum Shabbat in this park than anywhere else we have been. A nice lake, plenty of trees, and a large but quiet campground all added up to a restful Shabbat after the hustle and bustle of Washington.
From Delaware we went south, across 23 miles of alternating bridge-tunnel-bridge-tunnel-bridge called, fittingly enough, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel (the second time crossing the bay). This was the longest bridge system we have ever been on – and it is pretty spectacular – but it was not the last. Hopping from mainland to peninsula to island to mainland in North Carolina, we crossed over four additional bridges, two long and narrow (and a little hair-raising, if I had hair), two just long. For anyone who wants to look at a map, we drove along a very narrow strip of land called the Outer Banks of North Carolina, with the Intracoastal Waterway on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. At one point, we could see both at the same time.
Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel:
Bridge to and from Roanoke Island
Two things of interest with important messages: The first was stopping in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to visit the Wright Brothers National Memorial. This was both educational and impressive (and we had the opportunity to use, for the first time, our National Parks senior cards, so the entrance was free, as it is to all national parks and monuments and historic sites). We were at the actual place where Wilber and Orville built gliders to learn how to fly, and then built their heavier than air airplane; finally succeeding when they flew it four times on December 17, 1903, an event that changed the course of modern civilization. For years the Wright Brothers had trudged up Kill Devil Hill with their gliders, thousands of times, until their ultimate success.
Monument on top of Kill Devil Hill
A testament to perseverance, hard work, and belief in what you do.
We then drove through the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge; we didn’t see any alligators but the scenery was pretty.
The second was the solar eclipse. We did not realize until just a few days before that North Carolina was right in the path of the total solar eclipse, and in the area we were in, it was about 90%. So, we stopped at the side of the road to witness it. Luckily, they had handed out protective solar eclipse viewing panels at the Wright Brothers Memorial, for without these panels, we would not have been able to actually see the moon passing in front of the sun, with just a very bright sliver of yellow showing. (The day was still light, though; there was a slight graying of the sky, as if on an overcast day, but it was not dark.)
It was breathtaking. (No pictures; you had to be there.)
A testament to the wonders of Hashem.
And, of all the explanations we read about Jewish sources and solar eclipses, the one we liked the best is attributed to the Lubavitcher Rebbe-Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson who explained that eclipses are meant to be opportunities of increased prayer and introspection. And when we think that the eclipse took place on erev Rosh Chodesh Ellul….