Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2011- Virginia Beach and Newport News

We were all up to see the sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean today, at 6:44. We watched it from our hotel room. Once it was up, we took a little walk down the beach. The girls were looking for shells, and we were all a little afraid that the flock of seagulls following us looking for food was going to end up pooping on us. We walked all the way down to a huge statue of King Neptune and many of his fishy subjects. It was chilly today, in the 40s, but it was sunny and there wasn’t as much breeze.

After breakfast, we went drove to Fort Story, just north of Virginia Beach, to find out what the story was there. It’s a modern naval base, and we went through a pretty thorough check of our car before we were allowed to proceed. We went to the Cape Henry lighthouses—one from 1792 and one from 1870. They weren’t open for the day yet, so we circled back south.

We ended up at the Virginia Aquarium. It was quite an amazing place, and we unexpectedly stayed about five hours there. It definitely is built on the new school of thought in aquariums. There may not have been as many fish as we’ve seen in some, like the Newport Aquarium in Kentucky, but there were many interactive exhibits between them that were keeping the girls busy. They had a tunnel to walk through a tank filled with rays and other fish and several full wall tanks of sharks, sea turtles, and other fish bigger than Emma. The focus of the museum was on the natural history of Virginia. The girls especially liked the touch tank for the rays and for the horseshoe crabs.

At the aquarium, we enjoyed a spectacular IMAX film called, “Under the Sea” which was in 3-D. We ate lunch there, and then ventured out through a long winding path through the nearby woods and marsh. It took us to a second large building, which housed exhibits on the animals of the nearby marshes. They had a great exhibit on river otters, that really gave you a chance to sit and enjoy watching them play. There was also a great aviary to walk through with many water birds.

After the aquarium, we took a little drive to Newport News, to go to the Mariners Museum. We had been so long at the aquarium that we were a little rushed getting through this museum, so we went straight to its highlight. They have a new exhibit that features the story of the Battle of the Ironclads between the U.S.S. Monitor and the C.S.S. Virginia (aka- the Merrimac). It’s a logical museum to feature this story because it happened in the waters of nearby Hampton Roads. The Monitor’s turret was recently salvaged from where it sunk in the Atlantic, along with many artifacts from the ship. After viewing the fascinating displays and the cool movie about the battle, we went out onto a life-size mock-up of the ship. We then got to see the turret itself, though it is deep in a tank of water to help desalinate and preserve it. Even though we couldn’t see much of it, it was still an amazing display.

We breezed quickly through the rest of the museum, but Anna really wanted to see their exhibit on the Titanic. She had learned a lot about it in Nova Scotia, and we watched the movie with Leonardo di Caprio. At this museum, they had a luggage check ticket (good luck using that at baggage claim), and a life-vest that was supposed to have come from the ship. Emma and Anna got to climb into a replica of one of her lifeboats.

We made our way back to the hotel, though we took a different route and got a little lost in Norfolk. Scott got a chance to stop at a comic store, since it is Wednesday and new comics are out today. We made it back to the hotel ready to settle down for the last night here. Anna went swimming in the hotel pool, but it was very cool, and she decided not to swim long.

We’re headed back home tomorrow.