The much anticipated Virginia Beach, Outer Banks, coastal Carolina route down to Myrtle Beach began with a rental car drive from hometown Duxbury, Ma down to Virginia Beach. It is only 600 miles but Route 95 through Connecticut into Manhattan and the New Jersey Turnpike is very busy and filled with long haul trucks. It is tough going  so it felt good after 12 hours on the road to dump the rental car and jump on the bike for the short pedal down to the Clarion Inn on the beach.

  Virginia Beach is home to the Naval Air Station Oceana with 30,000 active, family and civilian personnel..It was a warm Friday night and the streets were a buzz with sailors, pilots and pretty young ladies. Stopping into a local watering hole felt like walking into a scene from An Officer and a Gentleman.  I could not have been any more real if Richard Gere and Deborah Winger had been sitting at a table.