Halloween at the Beach: Part 5 – Have to head home

Although its been great fun, it must come to an end.

Monday morning we woke up relatively early and were checked out and on the move about 9:00. We stopped in Kill Devil Hills to fill the truck. The Shell station had an interesting layout. There were 6 or 8 pumps on 3 or 4 parallel islands. Traffic was so that everyone came in from the same side of the corner and then went to the islands. Cash or credit didn’t matter, just pump and go. With the traffic pattern, everyone went out by passing the cashier sitting in a drive up booth. The lines were orderly and not having to prepay cut the lines and time to accomplish your business and move along.

We decided to follow the GPS to see what way they would send us around or through Norfolk this time. The routing got us off the 168 toll road expressway and on a surface street that took us into Virginia Beach via the Centerville Parkway. This was a new one to us. We got onto I64 a few miles before the Hampton tunnel.

Our next stop was lunch at Pierce’s Pitt BBQ in Lightfoot near Williamsburg. That’s a frequent stop for us as the food is good, the prices reasonable and the in and out relatively easy.

Although it threatened rain, it never hit us and we made good time to the Springfield interchange about 4:30. Traffic wasn’t as bad as we figured and the new configuration for the I66 interchange kept the backup limited to the right two lanes allowing us to continue on to slow at the Tyson’s Corner construction. With two of us, we were able to use the HOV lanes on I270 and made it home about 5:30 which was ahead of the trick or treaters.

This trip and the one in the spring are highlights for me and recharging the internal batteries. Unfortunately, Tuesday meant back to work.