{"id":955,"date":"1988-09-07T20:29:00","date_gmt":"1988-09-07T20:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike1988\/?p=955"},"modified":"2026-08-25T23:08:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T23:08:27","slug":"norfolk-va","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike1988\/norfolk-va\/","title":{"rendered":"Norfolk, VA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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After a while, I decided to move on. I went to the airport at Newport News and reserved a mini-van for Thursday-Friday-Saturday. I had decided to save a little money by not taking the car immediately. Furthermore, I found that I would only be charged for two days if I kept the car less than 48 hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I bedded down at the Econo Lodge near the airport. At $29, it was cheap, considering its location.<\/p>\nAlthough my original journal said Newport News, I now believe it was Norfolk airport, and the Econo Lodge right next to it.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Thursday, September 8, 1988<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Still on bike the next morning, I scouted out the bike shops that I had found in the phone book the night before. I needed an empty carton in which to package my bicycle for the return trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first place I hit was Conte’s Bike Shop – “The largest bike shop on the east coast.” They must not have biked much on the east coast, because the store was of mediocre size by California standards. The man in the shop showed me an article about two boys from Newport News who had biked across the U.S. It was Gene and Chris!<\/p>\nIn the article, Gene and Chris said that their worst mistake was drinking from an artesian well. I had seen that same well, but passed on taking a drink. Whew!<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Having located the boxes, there was not much more for me to do. I would need to get packing materials and such, but these could wait until I got the van. I played video games to kill time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the afternoon, it started to rain. It was a slippery ride to the airport because of the fine layer of wet clay on the shoulder. At 3:30, I got the caravan, loaded my bike in, and was instantly a lot more mobile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I drove around, trying to find a place for dinner. I got caught on freeways, one-way streets, and just generally kept getting lost. It was hard just finding places to stop to look at the map. In three months, I had forgotten how much I hated driving, especially driving without a navigator.<\/p>\nThis was driving solo in the pre-GPS, PRE-Internet days. Trying to look at a paper map spread on the passenger seat at parking lots or driveways, and trying to keep an eye on the road.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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After dinner, I somehow got caught in a bridge-tunnel and was forced to go to Norfolk, where I wandered aimlessly. I stopped and looked at a phone book for campgrounds, but found that there were none in the vicinity. Since I had a nice van, I didn’t see the point in paying for a motel again. I found a nice big empty parking lot in front of a shopping center called Gene Walter’s marketplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Locking the doors, I found a comfortable position on the floor under the seat, and went to sleep.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Friday, September 9, 1988<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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At 1:48 am, I heard a rattling at the door, then saw some flashlights shining in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Hey!” I shouted loudly, hoping to scare away the thief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Norfolk police,” was the answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was just a local patrol. I had left the headlights on, and they just wanted to make sure I was okay. After I explained that I was cycling, and was flying back to California on Saturday, they didn’t seem to mind that I was stopped for the night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the morning, I went into Gene Walter’s, which turned out to be a 24-hour variety store, and got some food for breakfast. I also picked up some rope, strapping tape, and a marker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I got my bike box from a local shop, then found myself faced with more free time. I decided to visit the Chrysler museum, which turned out to be fascinating. They had art from all periods and locations.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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I took a break and visited the Chrysler Museum in the afternoon. I’d never seen a FREE museum before of that caliber. I had to learn to turn off the flash when taking a picture. This is “Juno Placing the Eyes of Argus in the Peacock’s Tail.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Afterwards, I decided that I needed to get a motel room. I needed a workspace to use for packing all my things. I found a place and had almost everything packed by evening.<\/p>\nI also poured the last of my white gas from the fuel bottle into the gas tank of the van, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to take gasoline onto a flight.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a while, I decided to move on. I went to the airport at Newport News and reserved a mini-van for Thursday-Friday-Saturday. I had decided to save a little money by not taking the car immediately. Furthermore, I found that I would only be charged for two days if I kept the car less than … Continue reading Norfolk, VA<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike1988\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike1988\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike1988\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike1988\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike1988\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=955"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike1988\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":960,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike1988\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955\/revisions\/960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike1988\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike1988\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/bike1988\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}