Cheseapeake Bay Bridge

Today I drove with my family to the coast, through the green forests of the piedmont, sprawl and development of the coast, and across the expanse of the Chesapeake Bay to the Eastern Shore of Virginia. The southern tip of the Delmarva Peninsula, jutting down like a finger between the mainland and the surf of the Atlantic. A place of rich soil and agriculture, fields of corn, soybeans, cantaloupes, and watermelon. Salt marshes and the industries of the bay, fishing, clamming, oystering, and crabbing. Myriad fishing villages up and down the peninsula. Crusty old farmers and briny fishermen rubbing shoulders at the local watering holes.

All of my fathers side of the family lives here on the Eastern Shore and so I come to visit and be a good nephew, cousin, grandson. And especially I come to see my grandmother, my nana, the kindly eccentric strong willed matriarch of our family almost a hundred years old. This is the last unspoiled coastal land north for hundreds of miles. Along the way stopping for a break to look out on the expanse of the Chesapeake from the Bay Bridge Tunnel. An impressive feat of engineering over 25 miles across, part bridge and tunnel. Huge cargo freights and warships from the nearby navel bases of Norfolk passing over cars tunneling under the channel of the bay and millions of tons of water overhead.

Looking on the top side...I snapped this shot of near and far looking out on the blue expanse...