CBBT

Saturday morning we awoke early after a rough night with Trooper, packed up Roman's bags for the week and hit the road. Our destination: Heather's graduation party in Princess Anne, MD on the Eastern Shore. The kids have never been out that way via VA, only through MD, therefore they got to experience their first trip across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, or the CBBT. James has horrible memories of the CBBT as he generally despises bridges, and even more so, tunnels, so 24 miles across the Chesapeake Bay is not very thrilling for him. Me, however, I have great memories of driving that route. I LOVE water and it is just a very relaxing, peaceful drive for me, and I always remembered stopping in the middle of the Bay at this little gift shop, restaraunt and the CBBT being so long that you couldn't see land in either direction while stopped there. I told the kids about it the whole way there, and as we're coming out of the 2nd tunnel with no sign of the middle of the Bay stop I remembered, it became evident that you CAN see land in both directions from the middle of the Chesapeake Bay Bride Tunnel. I was a little taken back I'll admit. How is this possible? I clearly remember seeing nothing but water for as far as the eye could see, and even more so, James also remembers the bridge being sooooooooooo long that land could not be seen. He also remembered 3-4 tunnels along this path, and I thought for sure it was right.... nope, there's only 2!

As we sat there pondering how crazy our perceptions as children differ from today and how enormous this bridge complex once looked to us, Roman spoke up from the back seat to clarify everything. "I bet it used to be really really big, huh mom!" "Yes Roman, that's how I remember it". "I bet they shrunk it some since then. You know, took out the other 2 tunnels and made the bridges smaller!" LOL Yeah Roman, cause the Chesapeake Bay has shrunk that much since we were kids! LOL You always hear how the Bay is endangered, apparently by the Trettel standards, it must be in grave danger! LOL

We never did find my restaurant/gift shop/pier in the middle of the Bay, at least not on the way up there. On the way back I realized it's at the 1st tunnel entrance from the mainland, literally just a couple miles off the mainland and the entire coastline was clearly visible as we went inside for dinner. So much for not seeing land! Was I really that blind as a kid??