When we plan camping trips, we are hoping and praying that the weather will be good. But on the off-occasion that the weather doesn’t cooperate, plan B or C or D needs to kick in, depending on how severe the situation. For some 12 years, we have taken beach vacations with our friends Chris and Ed. Our tradition is to have coffee on the beach each morning. It’s something we do rain or shine and it has and it did. We called it sea mist. We found that our wonderful beach canopy was merely water resistant, not wind and rain proof. The raindrops falling on our heads became more intense as the rain collected and pooled above. We took an executive decision to abandon our private beach setting at the Cape Charles, Va., KOA.
After navigating the puddles back to the RV, we headed out to breakfast in Chris and Ed’s pickup. Now the rain was coming down pretty steady. We were driving around trying to figure out what else to do and Ed spotted a local museum with trains in the back. We quickly turned in. The ladies decided not to go into the museum because it smelled like diesel fuel, but that is like cologne to a train enthusiast like Ed. Our docent, Teri Miller, told us all about Cape Charles’ being founded in 1884 as a train town; the trains were ferried across the Chesapeake Bay as a shortcut to the South. She also fired up an old diesel generator (the diesel fuel delivered by train, of course) to show us how the town was powered in the late 1940s. We spent a lot of time there, smelling like diesel when we rejoined the wives—of which they reminded us.
Next was the Barrier Islands Center in Machipongo, Va. This historic house was built in 1725 with several additions since. From 1803 until 1952, it was the county poorhouse for residents who were homeless, mentally ill, orphans, had unpaid debts or even diseases like tuberculosis. Now it serves as an educational and heritage center/museum telling the story of the barrier islands along the Virginia coast. The 12+ rooms upstairs depict various aspects of life on the Barrier Islands before most of them had to be abandoned due to erosion and other weather-related issues. Chris and Service Dog Charlie enjoyed the music/ballroom. Nobody could hear me now on the old telephone. And we killed some more time on a rainy day during our beach camping trip.
No rainy day camping is complete without a really strange experience. Nothing could match what we found at an old Sunoco station turned antique store. Now this old beachcomber, maybe related to Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street, was quite a character. He wanted so much for us to buy some of his overpriced junk—he even emerged from the dark shadows of a back room and offered us to join him in a Bud Light and a plum. The ladies couldn’t leave fast enough! A gentle rain all night, then the next cloudy morning our Cape Charles beach saga ended with yet another beach coffee in a steady sea mist—while trying to grit our teeth and “enjoy” the sea mist with our coffee, the wetter we were getting. The good book says the rain falls on the just and unjust alike. Just make sure you have a Plan B just in case you have rainy day camping.
