A SEASIDE TREASURE
My family discovered Virginia's Kiptopeke State Park by chance. After spending a high-energy weekend in Virginia Beach, a tourist mecca packed with resort hotels, a bustling boardwalk and blanket-to-blanket beaches, we crossed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel to the 180-mile-long Delmarva (Delaware, Maryland and Virginia) Peninsula. Just three miles north of the bridge, we came upon the entrance to the park--and the gateway to Virginia's real eastern shore, a region dotted with small towns, islands and villages tied for generations to agriculture, oystering and crabbing.Easily overlooked by tourists, the 375-acre park is a world apart from civilization, and that's why my family has returned so many times over the years. Its quiet beaches, woods and farm fields give us a chance to relish summer's purest pleasures--floating in a tire tube, taking a nature hike and enjoying a picnic far away from crowds and commerce. In fact, Kiptopeke does not have restaurants, cappuccino stands or surfers. While my teenage daughter, Alissa, now counts this as disappointment, families with young kids will find Kiptopeke's rustic nature ideally suited to them. On the park's south side, a serene, 1/2-mile-long beach offers children gentle waves, thanks to a sunken WWII ship that acts as a breakwater 1,000 feet offshore. On the wilder, unlifeguarded north beach, you can join the locals who fish for flounder or croakers. Here, also, park rangers lead crabbing and fishing clinics, nighttime bonfires and canoe treks through the salt marshes of nearby Raccoon Creek.
Although Kiptopeke has camping facilities, we're a "we love our own bathroom" family, so we find a motel in Cape Charles, about eight miles north of the park. From there, we take day trips to explore other small towns. When possible, we avoid Route 13, a modern byway dotted with strip malls, and stick to Seaside Road (also called Route 600). This country lane takes us past roadside stands bursting with sweet corn and tomatoes, and a typical jaunt finds us motoring along behind pickup trucks piled high with green pyramids of watermelons.
At the dock in Oyster, Virginia, we watch fishermen unload their crab pots. In Wachapreague, we survey the fancy boats docked at the Island House marina, where the locals eat lunch. At dusk, the setting sun falls gently on the picturesque frame farmhouses and makes the fields of corn look like spun gold.
One of our favorite adventures is taking the ferry to Tangier Island, located in Chesapeake Bay about six miles south of the Maryland/Virginia line. In Tangier, families still make a living by oystering and crabbing, and the simplicity of the island draws tourists by the boatload. Tangier is by no means a fairy-tale village, though. Many of its whitewashed houses have centuries-old gravestones in their front yards, a sight Alissa still finds unnerving. We skip the locals' offers to tour the island by golf cart. Instead, we stroll along the wharf, where Alissa practices her photography, taking shots of crab pots and weathered fishermen.
Like most ferry passengers, we lunch at Hilda Crockett's Chesapeake House, a family style restaurant reputed to serve the best crab cakes in Virginia (some say they're the best in Maryland, too). Alissa, who doesn't usually like seafood, relishes the tasty local specialty, along with clam fritters, potato salad, corn pudding and home-baked bread.
Sated, tanned and happily tired, we board the ferry back to Onancock. As the waves break over the bow, we taste the blast of salt spray--and savor the flavor of Chesapeake Bay history.
For more information about this area, call the Eastern Shore of Virginia Chamber of Commerce, 757-787-2460.
Please keep in mind that phone numbers, addresses, and prices are subject to change. Updated June 2005.
