We departed Virginia Beach this morning just before 1000 hrs and headed towards our next destination which is called Kings Creek RV Park at Cheatham Annex, part of Naval Weapons Station Yorktown near Williamsburg VA. This is stop #21 out of 35 for this trip. Although a short journey today, just 75 miles, it was seemingly one of the most complicated travel plans we have built. To get across the James River there are several options, BUT most of them involve a bridge/tunnel combination. Three of them, the Hampton Road Bridge Tunnel on I-64 west, the Downtown tunnel on I-264, and the midtown tunnel on Route 58 have a minimum height of 13' 6" and our RV measures 13' 4". To confuse matters one of them is 14' 6" eastbound but 13' 6" westbound! Needless to say I am not chancing 2"! A good bounce and you've got trouble. So we needed to design a route and identify waypoints that would deliberately take us across the Monitor Merrimac Memorial Bridge Tunnel on I-664.
Through all the years we have traveled with our RV's, we've learned to never rely on addresses and always use GPS coordinates. We also use multiple sources, such as a GPS + a cell phone with Google Maps. We also roll with a printed copy of the directions for reference. To make sure our Garmin GPS was synced with the route we planned on Google Maps the night before, I identified five sets of GPS coordinates called waypoints (black dots on the route, above). The pre-planning paid off as the trip went without a hitch! A few pictures along the way:
We rolled into Cheatham Annex at 1128 hrs, processed through the security gate checkpoint, and arrived at the check-in building where we were reminded by the staff that check-in was not until 1200 hrs (oops!). They were kind enough to let us in and we made our way to the Kings Creek RV Park.
Kings Creek RV Park is slightly wooded which is nice as it gives us some shade, yet we have visibility to the southern sky so we have satellite reception. They have 50 full hookup RV sites plus many tent site and cabins for rent. Cell phone reception here is poor, and there is no campground WiFi, so this is an example where it is nice to have alternate carriers. It is also why I won't rely just on streaming for our television. Glad we have Directv on the roof! My RV network system uses AT&T and our cell phone are Verizon. We can enable the hotspot feature on our Verizon phones and allow the RV system to use it instead. Bottom line, both are a bit sketchy here but we have enough connectivity to update the blog!
Cheatham Annex was commissioned in 1943 as a US Navy Supply Depot. Now it is a huge logistics center for the Navy and a center for expeditionary training, and of course a morale, welfare and recreation (MWR) center. As we drove to the campground we passed warehouse after warehouse. Just on the other side of the fence from the campground is a storage area for excess small boats. It kind of reminds me of the AMARG facility for aircraft at Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson AZ!
We are here for five nights including tonight which was our travel day. Our plans here include visiting Jamestown Settlement, Historic Jamestowne, Colonial Williamsburg, Yorktown Battlefield and American Revolution Museum at Yorktown. Monday 5 July we move to Richmond VA.
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